CAIRO, May 24: Egypt has turned down a US invitation to attend the G8 summit of leading industrialized nations next month, indicating its mistrust of a US plan to widen democracy in the Middle East that is to be discussed there.

Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said on Monday in a television interview that President Hosny Mubarak would not be able to attend the G8 summit in the southern US state of Georgia because of other commitments.

He added that Tunisia had also declined to take part in the summit, which will hear details of President George Bush's "Greater Middle East Initiative". The Group of Eight is made up of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States.

Delegates at the just-ended Arab summit in Tunis said Algeria, Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan and Saudi Arabia had also been invited to the G8 meeting on June 10. Mr Mubarak's decision not to go to the meeting followed the Tunis summit's refusal to consider his idea for a top-level Arab body to coordinate and monitor reforms in the Arab world.

The United States has been emphasizing the need for democratic and economic reforms in the Arab world, seeing in them remedies to frustration and repression which are seen as the root of terrorism.

But Arab states are adamant that such reforms should not be imposed from the outside. The Tunis summit pledged reform but left full latitude to Arab countries on how and when to implement it.

Egyptian newspapers strongly criticized the summit's snubbing of Mr Mubarak's proposal. Al Hayat said there was suspicion that Mr Mubarak's idea was a stalking horse for US proposals, announced by Secretary of State Colin Powell at the World Economic Forum in Jordan last week, for a formal oversight role for the G8.

But Ibrahim Nafee, director of Al Ahram daily, who is close to Mr Mubarak, said that on the contrary it aimed to keep the G8 out of Arab affairs, preserve "Arab identity and the Arab League" and "reinforce the ability of Arab countries to resist foreign pressure".

Citing Egyptian political analysts, Al Ahram said the president criticized the US initiative for "totally ignoring" the need for reforms to be "gradual in order to preserve stability and stop extremist forces from controlling the process".

The Saudi-owned daily Al Hayat said anger made President Mubarak leave the summit without participating in the public closing session. In his interview with Egyptian television from Tunis, Mr Maher noted that those Arab countries which attended the G8 summit would have to defend the 13-point reform package approved at the weekend.

Delegates described the programme as a genuine "Arab" document aimed at undercutting US efforts to impose an alien package of political and economic reforms. However, diplomats in the region said the United States was happy that at least Arab leaders were finally talking about democratic change.

The programme committed Arab states to pursue and intensify the process of political, economic, social and educational reform - but according to their own national and cultural requirements, their religious values and their own "possibilities".

Other points called for fighting terrorism and expanding the bases of democracy and promoting human rights, as well as women's rights. In its preamble, the programme links reform in the Middle East to a just settlement of regional conflicts, particularly the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Mr Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt since 1981, warned in March that President Bush's plan could result in a "vortex of violence and anarchy", and that gradual reform should be implemented instead. - AFP