[Developer]

Mubarak: Egypt would hand over Shalit Written by Egypt News Thursday, 30 October 2008 Egypt would willingly stand aside and let some other government mediate a prisoner release between Israelis and Palestinians, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said in an interview published on Thursday.
Egypt has been trying for months, so far without success, to arrange the exchange of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit for hundreds of Palestinians held in Israeli jails. Palestinians in Gaza have been holding Shalit for more than two years.


In the interview with the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, Mubarak showed signs of frustration with the task, and especially of suggestions that Egypt had failed.
The Egyptian state news agency MENA carried the text of the interview in advance of publication in Israel.
"Whoever can solve the problem, let them go ahead. It's not our monopoly ... Whoever can solve it, solve it, and I will applaud," said Mubarak, who discussed Shalit with Israeli President Shimon Peres one week ago in a Red Sea resort.
After his talks with Peres, Mubarak told a conference that "the other side" was responsible for the deadlock in the talks, but he did not make clear who he meant.
In the interview he said: "In fact the responsibility lies with both sides. We are trying to solve the problem with the Palestinians and they say they want a large number (of prisoners) released. Then Israel says: 'No, we won't release so-and-so and so-and-so,' and so on."
"We are trying to reconcile the two sides."
Any mediator would need a relationship with the Palestinians and only one mediator should work at a time, Mubarak added.
Mubarak said that as far as he knew Shalit, who was captured in a raid close to the Gaza-Israel border in 2006, is in good health and he said the Palestinians would not harm him.
But he would make no prediction about when a prisoner exchange might take place.