Mideast peace summit to fail, says Tehran (Roundup)

Nov 26, 2007, 15:54 GMT

Tehran - Tehran on Sunday said that the scheduled Middle East peace summit would fail and have no tangible outcome for the Palestinian cause.

'We have had numerous conferences like this in the past and all of them produced nothing and failed,' Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini said in his weekly press briefing in Tehran.

'Also this one will just lead to another erosion of Palestinian rights,' Hosseini added.

Referring to the pro-Israeli stance of the West, the spokesman termed the initiators of Tuesday's international Middle East peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland, as 'no objective mediators.'

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week termed the scheduled Middle East peace summit as 'futile and bound to fail.'

'The era when some countries consider themselves as authorized to decide about the fate of the Palestinian nation is over as such an issue can only be settled with the real representatives of Palestine,' Ahmadinejad said, alluding to the Hamas group.

In Washington, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino dismissed the Iranian comments as US President George W Bush hosts the conference aimed at tapping into moderate political forces in the Middle East to bring about a peace settlement while trying to marginalize extremist groups like Palestinian Hamas.

'It is not surprising that a country like Iran is concerned that extremist elements are being targeted,' Perino said.

Ahmadinejad warned the regional Arab states 'not to fall into a trap of this so-called autumn conference' and to not allow 'enemies' to prepare grounds for misuse.

'Today the Zionist regime is on its way towards collapse and therefore the enemies and those who created this fraudulent regime want to hold the autumn conference for boosting its spirit,' the president said.

Iran does not acknowledge the Israeli state and wants a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital to be established.

Tehran accuses Washington of seeking to strengthen Israel and undermine the influence of the Muslim states in the Middle East.