Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today he would hold talks in Egypt on Tuesday with President Hosni Mubarak.

"I believe we have an interest in moving the peace process forward in a variety of ways," Netanyahu, announcing the visit, told reporters at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting.

Netanyahu said he had requested the meeting with Mubarak after talks that Egypt's intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, held in Israel last week.

"I intend to continue this important dialogue," the Israeli leader said.

Along with Germany, Egypt is mediating a prisoner trade between Israel and Hamas under which the Islamist group, in charge of the Gaza Strip, would release a captured Israeli soldier and Israel would free some 1,000 jailed Palestinians.

Netanyahu last visited Egypt in May, meeting Mubarak in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, where the Israeli leader pledged to pursue talks with the Palestinians.

Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have been suspended for the past year.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said talks could resume only if Israel halted all settlement construction on land it captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. He has rejected as insufficient a limited moratorium on new building in West Bank settlements that Netanyahu imposed last month.

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