Arab League chief rules out amendment of Arab peace plan

Mar 20, 2007, 14:27 GMT

Amman - Arab League Secretary General Amr Musa on Tuesday completely excluded the possibility of amending the Arab Peace Initiative as demanded by Israel.

'There is no intention whatever to introduce any changes to the Arab Peace Initiative,' Musa told a press conference he jointly addressed with Jordanian Foreign Minister Abdul Ilah Khatib.

'The Israeli demand is unacceptable, because Israel so far failed to respond in a serious manner to the Arab peace plan, and instead ignored it and went ahead in its schemes of building more settlements and the construction of the buffer wall,' he said.

The Arab peace plan, which was endorsed by the Arab summit in Beirut in 2002, envisages extending recognition to Israel by Arab states after it pulls out from the Arab territories it occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem.

Musa is visiting Jordan in the course of an Arab tour that has the aim of conducting preparations for the Arab summit conference scheduled for March 28 in Saudi Arabia.

His trip includes Syria, which reportedly has reservations over the summit's agenda and harbours concerns that the conference could be exploited by the United States to muster consensus from the so-called moderate Arab camp in support of a US strike against Iran, a Syrian ally.

The planned arrival of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the region next week has sparked speculation that she would be putting pressure on moderate Arab states to amend the Arab peace blueprint and extend support to any future military action against Tehran.

Responding to reporters' questions, Musa said that the newly formed Palestinian coalition government was 'receiving an increasing world acceptance.'

'The rejection of the Palestinian unity cabinet will have a high price,' he said, alluding to the stances of Israel and the US.

Khatib said 'what needed was more effort' on the part of Arab states to present the Arab peace plan to the world.

'The Arab initiative was set forth clearly on behalf of the Arab world by King Abdullah II in his address before the US Congress' two weeks ago, he added.

He said he had discussed with Musa 'the preparations for the summit being conducted by Saudi Arabia.' 'We are all satisfied with these preparations and hope they will ensure the summit will be a success and represent a landmark in the collective Arab action,' he added.