Morsi pledges to respect treaty with Israel

CAIRO (AP) — A participant in a meeting between Egypt’s Islamist president and a large US trade delegation says the Egyptian leader has reaffirmed pledges that he will respect his country’s landmark peace treaty with Israel.

Mohammed Morsi also said Sunday during the hour-long meeting that he has instructed his Cabinet to fight corruption and reduce red tape to create a better environment for business and investment.

Since his election, Morsi has offered repeated assurances he would respect the 1979 treaty, apparently to remove any doubt in the Jewish state of his commitment to the historic accord. Morsi hails from the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group that has a decades-old enmity with Israel.

The participant spoke on condition of anonymity because Morsi’s spokesman has not yet briefed the media on the meeting.

Elesehwere, Egypt’s tour guides rallied to protest the lack of security at tourist attractions, claiming they are attacked by souvenir vendors and unlicensed competitors fighting for turf at famed sites like the Valley of the Kings tombs in Luxor or Cairo’s medieval citadel.

Tourism, a top foreign currency earner, has suffered from the turmoil following the 2011 uprising that forced President Hosni Mubarak to step down.

Faten Abou Ali, a spokesman for the guides’ union, said Morsi’s new government is not paying attention to the industry.

About 150 guides gathered outside Cairo’s Egyptian Museum Sunday. A spokeswoman for the guides, Gladys Haddad, said 40 attacks against guides were recorded over the last year, including harassment of women. Tourism officials could not immediately be reached for comment.