Netanyhau-Mubarak meeting delayed

Delay fuels speculation about the 83-year-old Egyptian leader’s health.

By HERB KEINON
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. AP 311 (photo credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. AP 311
(photo credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced Tuesday that a meeting scheduled with President Hosni Mubarak Wednesday in Egypt had been postponed until next Sunday, fueling increased speculation about the 83-year-old Egyptian leader’s health.
Netanyahu was originally scheduled to travel to Cairo on Tuesday to meet Mubarak, but that meeting was pushed off a day, and now until Sunday.
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The postponement, according to sources in the Prime Minister’s Office, was because of changes in Mubarak’s schedule.
The two men were expected to discuss the diplomatic process with the Palestinians, Netanyahu’s recent meeting in Washington with US President Barack Obama, and Iran.
Mubarak also reportedly postponed a meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that had been scheduled for Thursday.
The German news agency DPA reported from Beirut on Tuesday that Mubarak was due to leave Egypt before the end of the week, and quoted a Lebanese source as saying it was for “a new round of treatment in Germany.”
There have been reports in recent weeks that Mubarak was suffering from cancer.
“President Mubarak’s health deteriorated last week while he was in Paris, and his doctors advised his family to take him back to Germany,” the source said without elaborating.
Mubarak was treated at the University Clinic in Heidelberg in March. The clinic, according to the DPA report, refused on Tuesday to confirm whether Mubarak was expected back for treatment. The report also quoted the Lebanese daily As Safir as saying “it had learned that Mubarak will leave Egypt in the coming 48 hours for Munich.”
Earlier this month Mubarak went to Paris for a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, but the Londonbased Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper reported that he underwent a battery of medical tests soon after arriving.