Visiting UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday met with Arab League (AL) chief Amr Moussa discussing developments in the Arab world.

Talks between Ban and Moussa at the AL headquarters in Cairo are expected to focus on the Palestinian issue, the situation in Iraq and Lebanon, Sudan's Darfur and Somalia problems and other Mideast regional issues, according to Wael al-Assad, the director of the AL multilateral relations department.

Al-Assad also hailed Ban's visit to AL as an important step that will help beef up cooperation between the UN and the AL and bring it to better and broader levels.

Earlier on Saturday, Ban met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and discussed the latest regional and international developments with an emphasis on issues of Iraq, Lebanon, Darfur and the Palestinian cause and the UN role to solve these issues.

Ban, who arrived in Cairo on Thursday evening from Baghdad, is on his first Mideast regional tour since he took over from Kofi Annan as the UN chief in January.

After Egypt, Ban will head for Israel, the Palestinian territories and Jordan. Then he is scheduled to attend the opening session of the upcoming Arab summit, slated for March 28-29 in Riyadh. Ban's final leg is Lebanon.

Source: Xinhua