Cairo  - Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak on Monday warned that demands for recognition of Israel as a Jewish state risked "aborting" the peace process, in the wake of Benjamin Netanyahu's key speech.

Mubarak, speaking to paratroopers the day after the Israeli Prime Minister's address on the future of the peace process, warned that the Middle East will remain mired in "chaos and instability" without "a just peace" between Israelis and Palestinians, Egypt's official news agency reported.

The Egyptian leader said he had urged Netanyahu to resume negotiations on a final settlement to the conflict "where they had left off, and without delay."

"Calls for recognition of Israel as a Jewish state ignore the complexity of the issue and abort the chances for peace. They will not find a response in Egypt or outside of Egypt," the Egyptian president added.

"Without a peaceful and just solution to the Palestinian issue, the Middle East will remain an arena of chaos and instability," Mubarak said. "This issue is the key to the rest of the crises in the region."

"The region now has a window of opportunity to make peace," Mubarak said. "This opportunity must not be lost, as so many have been before it."

Soon after, Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki dismissed what he called Netanyahu's offer of "a kind of autonomy for the Palestinians" as "an old ... idea that the rest of the world has espoused for years."

Zaki warned that what he said was Netanyahu's implication that the land of Israel had been divinely granted to the Jews risked "making a religious conflict out of a political one," and "served only to harm those calling for moderation, negotiation and a political settlement."(dpa)