Norwegian Foreign Minister Thorbjoern Jagland is to visit Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian territories later this week for consultations on Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, the Norwegian embassy in Cairo announced Sunday.
Jagland is expected in the northern Egyptian port city of Alexandria Tuesday evening, and will hold talks with his Egyptian counterpart Amr Moussa the next day, the embassy said.
He will move on to Israel on Wednesday afternoon, and go to the Palestinian Territories at a date yet to be announced, it added.
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat made a brief stopover in Oslo on August 12th as part of an international tour to drum up support for the Palestinian negotiating position and his plans to declare an independent state on September 13th with or without an agreement with Israel.
Jagland said during that visit that the Palestinians "have a definite right to declare a Palestinian state, and no-one can veto it."
"However, we would prefer that the state be declared as a consequence of a peace agreement," he added - CAIRO (AFP)
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