Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked US President Barack Obama and other world leaders to declare that any new Egyptian regime must respect the 1979 peace treaty with Israel.
Netanyahu said in talks with diplomats that Israel's interest was to safeguard peace with Egypt.
"Israel believes the international community must insist that any Egyptian government maintain the peace treaty with Israel," Netanyahu was quoted as saying in a statement sent to the German Press Agency dpa Wednesday.
"Israel is a democracy and supports the advance of liberal and democratic values in the Middle East. The advancement of those values is good for peace," the statement said.
"But if extremist forces are allowed to exploit democratic processes to come to power and advance anti-democratic goals as has happened in Iran and elsewhere the outcome will be bad for peace and bad for democracy," it warned.
Netanyahu's spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
According to a senior official, Israel wants the international community to set a series of conditions for the West to recognize any new Egyptian leadership. One of them should be preserving the treaty, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Haaretz newspaper.
"The matter was made clear to the Americans and many other countries," the official was quoted as saying.
The official drew a comparison with the Hamas, the de-facto government in the Gaza Strip.
When Hamas won Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006, it was asked by the West to meet three conditions in return for contacts: To recognize Israel's right to exist, renounce violence as a legitimate means to achieve Palestinian self-determination, and endorse existing interim agreements that call for a two-state solution.
Hamas rejected the demand and has been boycotted by the US and Europe.
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