BEIT-UL-MOQADDAS (AFP) -- Israeli DefenSe Minister Ehud Barak will head to Egypt on Wednesday for his first meeting with President Hosni Mubarak and top defence officials since taking office in June, an official said Monday.

During his brief visit to the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, Barak will also meet his Egyptian counterpart Mohammed Hussein Tantawi and intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, one of his aides told AFP.
The former prime minister and army chief will again raise Israel's demand for Egypt to crack down on arms smuggling from the Sinai desert into the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, he said.
Cairo has asked Israel to renegotiate the two countries' 1979 peace treaty so that Egypt can deploy more troops along the border in a bid to stem the arms flow, Israeli diplomatic sources told AFP during a visit by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to Sharm el-Sheikh in November.
Barak was also expected to discuss Egyptian-mediated efforts to secure the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was seized by Gaza resistance fighters in June 2006 and is still being held captive.
According to media reports, the two sides have tentatively agreed that Israel will release some 450 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Shalit, but remain at odds on which detainees will be released.
On Monday, an Israeli inter-ministerial committee was expected to examine a possible easing for criteria for Palestinian prisoner releases, a move that could pave the way for a prisoner exchange.
Egypt, the first Arab state to make peace with Israel, has in the past undertaken mediation efforts to resolve crises in Israeli-Palestinian ties and clashes between Palestinian factions.