CAIRO, May 7 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met here Monday with visiting Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to probe peace efforts in Sudan and means to boost bilateral relations, government sources said.

    The talks focused on ways to bolster the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed between the Sudanese government and former southern Sudanese rebels on Jan. 9, 2005, as well as means to settle the crisis in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, according to the sources.

    They said Mubarak and al-Bashir also discussed means to boost Egyptian-Sudanese economic and trade cooperation by setting up joint ventures in the domains of agriculture, electricity, gas, education and health.

    Earlier, Egyptian Presidential spokesman Suleiman Awad noted that consultations between Egypt and Sudan are going on at all levels and Egypt supports all efforts aiming at realizing a comprehensive peace in Sudan and reaching a settlement to Darfur problem.

    In late April, officials from Sudan, Chad, Egypt, Eritrea and Libya, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council as well as the African Union, the European Union, the Arab League and the United Nations held a multipartite ministerial meeting on Sudan's Darfur issue in the Libyan capital of Tripoli.

    The meeting was held at a time when Darfur rebel movements were continuously boycotting a resumption of peace talks and Khartoum was under mounting pressures to approve the deployment of UN peacekeepers in Darfur.