Egyptian President Husni Mubarak and Saudi Crown Prince Abd Allah bin Abd al-Aziz, the de facto ruler of the kingdom, believe the plan risks turning the Arab world into an amalgam of widely divergent interests and first signalled their resistance to it in February.
Cairo and Riyadh have repeatedly signalled they would reject any attempt to impose a "foreign order" on the region, while pointing out they were not opposed to democratic reforms implemented by Arab states on their own initiative.
...The two countries have also criticised the US plan for putting too little focus on reviving the Palestinian, Israeli peace process.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Mahir has said that NATO has no role to play in driving political reform in the Middle East, as envisioned in Bush's plan.
Aljazeera article
Cairo and Riyadh have repeatedly signalled they would reject any attempt to impose a "foreign order" on the region, while pointing out they were not opposed to democratic reforms implemented by Arab states on their own initiative.
...The two countries have also criticised the US plan for putting too little focus on reviving the Palestinian, Israeli peace process.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Mahir has said that NATO has no role to play in driving political reform in the Middle East, as envisioned in Bush's plan.
But Condi says they declined to attend the conference because of "scheduling conflicts".
