Valdai Conference opens at Dead Sea to discuss prospects of peace

Dec 21, 2009, 20:44 GMT

Amman - Prominent politicians and experts from around the world opened a meeting on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea Monday to discuss the potential for the Arab-Israeli peace process.

The two-day Valdai Conference is organized by the Russian Information and News Agency (RIA Novosti) and the Russian Council on Foreign and Defence Policy (CFDP).

The conference, convening for the first time in the Middle East, was first held in 2004 on the shores of Valdai Lake in Russia as a platform for Russian politicians to discuss international issues with their foreign counterparts.

The meeting held under the motto Middle East 2020: Can a Comprehensive Peace be Achieved, is being attended by participants from Jordan, the Palestinian territories, Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Russia, Turkey, the United States, Britain and France.

Addressing the opening session, former Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qurei said that the choice of peace was 'inevitable regardless of all factors of frustration and complication.'

'This meeting proves that a light is still there at the end of this long tunnel,' Qurei said.

'The only solution lies in the setting up of an independent Palestinian state with borders along the June 1967 lines and East Jerusalem as its capital,' he added.

Qurei also urged Israel to stop all 'unilateral and illegal acts in Jerusalem and to quit the judaization policy of the holy city through the building of more settlements'.

Jordanian journalists said that they withdrew from the opening session to protest the participation of Israelis.

Former Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov told the conferees that the situation in the region had been 'complicated with the emergence of new issues such as the Iranian nuclear programme,' and the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

'The new conflicts are set to fuel the inclination of extremism' pursued by some Islamic movements, he argued.

Primakov contended that the US administration of President Barack Obama could contribute to the solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, given its efforts to stop the building of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian lands.