Mubarak: Proposals on resettling Palestinians in Egypt rejected

CAIRO - 29 November 2017: Former President Hosni Mubarak said in a Wednesday statement he refused to listen to proposals on resettling Palestinians in Egypt.

"There is no truth whatsoever to Egypt or me accepting the resettlement of Palestinians in Egypt," said the 89-year old veteran.

According to secret

documents

disclosed legally by the BBC on Wednesday, Mubarak appears to have accepted the decades-long proposal to resettle Palestinians in Egypt. The documents date back to February 1983.

Publicly, Egypt vehemently rejects such ideas. On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry

condemned

the suggestion reiterated recently by Israeli Social Equality Minister Gila Gamliel.

Below is a translation of Mubarak's statement.

"In clarification to what has been circulated in the media in the past few days based on British documents indicating a meeting between me and the British prime minister in February 1983. I find it necessary to clarify some historical facts for the Egyptian population.

1. During the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982, the situation was escalating to include the entire Middle East, only months after Israeli troops withdrew from Sinai in April 1982.

2. In light of the Israeli aggression, its ravaging of an Arab country and its troops reaching Beirut, I decided to withdraw the Egyptian ambassador from Israel and worked on ensuring a safe exit for Palestinians besieged in Beirut.

3. Egypt indeed secured the departure of besieged Palestinians from Beirut with Yasser Arafat at the forefront. They were allowed to pass through the Suez Canal to Yemen. I received Yasser Arafat when the ship carrying him and his companions stopped in the Suez Canal; I assured him that Egypt supports the Palestinian people in achieving their legitimate rights.

4. There is no truth whatsoever to the claims of Egypt or me accepting the resettlement of Palestinians in Egypt, especially those already in Lebanon at the time. There were some parties at the time that attempted to persuade me to allow the Palestinians in Lebanon to resettle in Egypt and I denied vehemently.

5. I denied all attempts to resettle Palestinians in Egypt or to even consider what Israel had proposed to me, specifically in 2010, so as to resettle Palestinians in a part of Sinai per a land exchange deal presented to me by the then-Israeli prime minister. I stressed right there and then that I was unwilling to even listen to such ideas pertaining to that matter.

6. I have held firmly to a principle that I never deviated from; that is to never waiver an inch of Egyptian land for which my generation and I fought. Such was the principle that was embodied in our determination to regain every inch of our lands occupied in 1967, until Taba was returned to the Egyptian sovereignty."