Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul-Gheit did not call Israel an “enemy country,” the Foreign Ministry in Cairo said Tuesday. On Sunday, reports said that Aboul-Gheit said that he “did not pass messages from enemy countries” when asked at a press conference in Beirut if he had brought a message from Israel regarding the report on Scud missiles being transferred to Hizbullah. The Foreign Ministry statement said that Aboul-Gheit's words were taken out of context. Israel protested the comments on Monday.
According to the Egyptian statement, Aboul-Gheit said that Israel was Lebanon's enemy, not Egypt's.