Egypt Takes Credit for Peace Talks

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EGYPT, long ostracized by other Arab states for its separate peace of 1979, is now playing broker to a wider Arab-Israeli peace.

According to Egyptian officials, these efforts are an extension of the peace process carried out by then-President Jimmy Carter, Israel's Menachim Begin, and the late Anwar Sadat.

"The (peace) process was there, laying in abeyance until the Syrian response," said a senior Foreign Ministry official. "The Syrian response came through intensive consultations with us. With it the process has probably been relaunched."

In recent weeks, Egyptian diplomats have carried out a flurry of diplomatic contacts, to support US peace …