Israel would accept the two-state solution sooner or later, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak told the Egyptian Nile News TV in an interview on Wednesday.

"When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Egypt, he said that he wanted to make parallel steps together, which means he makes a step and the Arab world makes another," Mubarak said.

"Nobody believes the Israelis, they said they would stop settlements and then they go on building settlements," he said, adding "But I told Netanyahu it is not possible as there is no trust. I told him that he has to make a big step in order to push the process."

Mubarak met with Netanyahu in the Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in May but Netanyahu did not adopt the two-state solution.

Mubarak said, "Israel would accept the two-state solution, no choice, and in my meeting with Netanyahu I told him that and he did not refuse the two-state solution."

"When former US President Harry Truman accepted the establishment of a Jews state, Truman deleted the word Jews and wrote Israel, I have this document and I showed it to Netanyahu and to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak," he added.

On Wednesday, Ehud Barak called on Benjamin Netanyahu to abide by all the previous peace agreements including the Road Map that prescribes the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts.

The defense minister said he hoped Netanyahu would accept US President Barack Obama's Middle East peace initiative.

Obama told Netanyahu on May 18 to freeze all settlement construction, including the "natural growth" of existing ones, while asked Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on May 28 to halt the incitement of anti-Israeli sentiments, in a bid to clear the atmosphere in the region.

As for the Palestinian split, Mubarak said, "I want to tell the Palestinians that they would lose their issue by split between factions, they have to reach an agreement, no body would solve their issue until they help solve it by themselves, and they must give us a chance to help them."

"I say it clearly, if the Palestinians did not reach an agreement with each other, they would lose their cause," Mubarak said.

On Tuesday, exiled Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal hold separate talks with Egyptian Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman and Arab League chief Amr Moussa in an effort to defuse the tension between the two Palestinian rival factions, Hamas and Fatah.

Meshaal, who is based in the Syrian capital of Damascus, welcomed any real opportunity to reach a Palestinian reconciliation and to end Israeli occupation.

(Xinhua News Agency June 11, 2009)