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SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt : US President George W Bush arrived in Egypt on Saturday for talks with Palestinian leaders amid growing Arab criticism of his perceived bias towards Israel and of the faltering peace talks.
He went straight into talks with President Hosni Mubarak with discussions focused on the Middle East peace process, the situation in the Palestinian territories and on lifting the Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip, the official MENA news agency reported.
Bush was to meet Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, having arrived from oil powerhouse Saudi Arabia at the end of a regional tour, most of which was spent celebrating Israel's 60th birthday.
He will also meet Jordan's King Abdullah II as well as Iraqi and Pakistani leaders ahead of his address to the World Economic Forum on the Middle East.
A Saudi official told AFP that talks between Bush and Saudi King Abdullah on Friday focused on the Palestinian issue and Middle East peace.
King Abdullah "underlined the need for the United States to exert more efforts to prompt Israel to reach results in the negotiations with the Palestinians conducive to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state," the official said, asking not to be named.
Bush's regional tour, his second since January, follows efforts at last year's Annapolis conference aimed at restarting the stalled Middle East peace process, but hopes of a deal by the end of his term in January are dwindling.
The president began his tour in Israel where he addressed parliament as the Jewish nation marked the 60th anniversary of its founding.
His speech sparked the ire of Egypt's press.
"Bush has forgotten his role as the just mediator (of the Arab-Israeli conflict) and exposed his real self in the Knesset," said the editorial in the state-owned Al-Gomhuria.
"The speech cast many question marks over the credibility of America in its role as fair mediator in the peace process," the daily Al-Ahram said in its editorial.
Bush hailed what he called "unbreakable" ties between the United States and Israel, describing it as a thriving democracy threatened by regional adversaries and their armed proxies.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had been mooted to attend the economic forum in Egypt but, with little Middle East peace progress to justify a three-way summit, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and President Shimon Peres will lead the Israeli delegation instead.
The Middle East peace process is also likely to come up in Bush's talks with Mubarak on Saturday as Egypt acts as the interlocutor between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement which took over the Gaza Strip last June.
Bush will discuss his continuing "war on terror" with leaders of two of the countries on the front line, meeting Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday and Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Ahmed Saleh on Sunday.
He is expected, during a meeting with Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, to raise US concerns over the new Pakistani government's more conciliatory line towards the Taliban and extremists.
A meeting with Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora was dropped from Bush's agenda after the opening on Friday in Qatar of Arab-brokered talks among Lebanese leaders aimed at ending a long-running feud that drove their country to the brink of a new civil war.
The WEF meeting, dubbed the Davos of the Middle East, will bring together 1,500 people, including heads of state, business leaders and ministers from 55 countries, under the theme "learning from the future."
Sharm el-Sheikh, which has been the scene of militant attacks in the past, was under a security lockdown for the event, with plainclothes police mingling with bikini-clad tourists, mainly Russians and Italians. - AFP/ms
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