Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, Syria's Bashar al-Assad, and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah may hold a rare three-way high-level meeting in Egypt this week, according to a report in London's al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper on Wednesday.
The meeting is significant considering the distance Saudi Arabia and Egypt have placed between them and Syria in the last few years. Saudi Arabia's suspicion that Syria was responsible for the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri in 2005 made the relationship between the two countries rocky. Tensions between Syria and Egypt were exacerbated after the Second Lebanon War, when Syria said any Arab leaders who did not support Hizbullah were "half men," and Egypt uncovered a Hizbullah cell that was targeting Egyptian sites.
President Mubarak, who is recovering from gall bladder surgery conducted in Germany, met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday. Assad's request to visit Mubarak as he is recuperating may signify a conciliatory stance on the part of Syria, and signal a warming of relations between the two countries.
According to the paper, the unique meeting between Mubarak, Assad, and Abdullah will revolve around an increasingly heated diplomatic exchange between Israel and Syria, in which Israel has accused Syria of supplying terror group Hizbullah with Scud missiles to fire on the Jewish State.
This accusation has been bolstered by a US summons to Syria's senior diplomat in Washington on Monday, in which the alleged weapons transfer was discussed.
Nuclear developments in Syria's ally, Iran, will also feature prominently, with political developments in Iraq and continuing disunity between Hamas and Fatah likely to make the agenda.