NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR: Middle East peace is high on the to- do list at the White House today. A key player in town for talks with the president while other negotiators are packing for home. CNN's Andrea Koppel is watching for developments. She joins us from the White House -- Andrea.</s>ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Natalie. While Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak met for two and a half hours with President Clinton here at the White House, lower level Israeli and Palestinian officials wrapped up a week of talks at Bolling Air Force Base agreeing to come back again to try to make some more progress on reaching an outline for final status talks. White House officials saying that the two president's, Mr. Mubarak and Mr. Clinton, agreeing to work together on the Middle East peace process, specifically on the stalled Israeli-Syrian track, that despite last weekend's disappointment, the summit between President Clinton and Syria's president. Mr. Mubarak, however, remains optimistic that a deal is within reach.</s>HOSNI MUBARAK, PRESIDENT, EGYPT: Concerning the Geneva meeting, I cannot say that it is a failure. It's a step forward. Because there's no progress between the Israelis and the Syrians, that does make us pessimistic. We have to make much more effort for us to reach peace, and an agreement could be signed for the welfare of the whole area.</s>KOPPEL: That optimism, however, is not shared, at least publicly, by the principles involved in the Israeli-Syrian peace track. One senior U.S. official, however, described the talks as being in "suspended animation," that just because you don't hear what's going on doesn't mean that nothing is going on. U.S. officials hoping very much that President Mubarak, who holds tremendous clout within the Middle East, both in Israel and among his Arab neighbors, will be able to make some kind of breakthrough with the Syrian and Israeli officials. Reporting live, I'm Andrea Koppel, CNN, the White House. Search CNN.com CNNSI.com CNNmoney.com The Web
Clinton Talks Middle East Peace with Egyptian President Mubarak