Arab foreign ministers discuss Mideast peace process

Apr 11, 2009, 11:19 GMT

Amman- Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa and six Arab foreign ministers met in Amman on Saturday to appraise the Middle East peace process following the coming to power of a new right-wing government in Israel.

The meeting came at the invitation of the Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh to coordinate Arab attitudes on the peace negotiations with Israel ahead of a visit to Washington by King Abdullah II, the date of which has not been set so far, sources close to the meeting said.

Taking part in the meeting were the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, the Palestinian Authority and Lebanon. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem had been due to take part, but was on a visit to Iran, according to the sources.

The Jordanian leader is expected to relay to the US President Barack Obama a Pan-Arab viewpoint based on the Arab peace initiative, which received fresh backing from the last month's Arab summit in Doha.

The blueprint, which is essentially based on the two-state formula, offers Israel recognition by all Arab states if it withdraws all Arab territories it occupied in the 1967 Six-Day War, including East Jerusalem.

The Amman meeting came against the backdrop of the election of a right-wing Israeli government, led by the Likud party leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who ran on a platform that ignores the two-state solution, strongly backed by Obama and the European Union, but offers only 'economic peace' to the Palestinians.

Israel's hawkish new Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who advocates the deportation of all Palestinians from Israel and the West Bank, has dissociated his government from the Annapolis understanding which endorsed the setting up of a Palestinian state that lives in peace with Israel.

Arab states received encouragement this week from Obama's declaration before the Turkish parliament that he strongly backed the two-state vision.

EU countries also recently voiced similar commitments, by among others British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who told a press conference in Jordan on Thursday that London wanted Jerusalem to be the capital of both the Palestinians and Israel.