Netanyahu calls on Morsi to honor Israel-Egypt peace treaty

ISRAELI Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has appealed to Egypt’s new president Mohamed Morsi to honor the 1978 peace treaty between the two nations, officials told Xinhua Sunday.In a personal letter sent last week, Netanyahu “expressed hope for cooperation and for strengthening the peace treaty and peaceful relation between both countries” as part of the Camp David Accords which ended 30 years of conflict, according to the Ha’aretz daily.He also wished Morsi and the Egyptian people luck, it said.Morsi, who was sworn in on Saturday, has emphasized “Egypt’s commitment to international treaties and agreements.”Besides the letter delivered via the Israeli embassy in Cairo, the Israeli prime minister also sent his personal envoy Issac Molcho to meet with Egyptian military intelligence chief and other senior security officials, according to the report.“It’s appropriate that there will be the opening of a channel of communication,” Israeli foreign ministry’s deputy spokesman Paul Hirschon said.“We have diplomatic and commercial relations, both of which are founded on the peace treaty. We’ve got communication with the Egyptians that’s been going on all the time, with our ambassador there,” he added.In March, the Egyptian parliament unanimously approved a document demanding “the expulsion from Egypt of the Israeli ambassador (Yaakov Amitai) and the recall of Egypt’s envoy from Tel Aviv.”Hirschon said that after mobs ransacked the Israeli embassy in Cairo last September, Israeli diplomats “were working in a temporary location” until a site for a new embassy was decided upon.During the riots, then Israeli Ambassador to Egypt Yitzhak Levanon, along with some 80 diplomats and their families, was airlifted home overnight, while six security officers remained trapped in the building until Egyptian commandos dispersed the mobs.