Key Arab nations to attend peace talks
CAIRO, Egypt - Saudi Arabia and other key Arab nations Friday agreed to attend a U.S.-sponsored peace conference, a move that added credibility to an attempt to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict before President Bush leaves office.
The guessing over what countries would participate ended here when the Arab League announced that Cabinet-level representatives from its major states, with the exception of Syria, would travel next week to the summit in Annapolis, Md. The critical nod came from Saudi Arabia, a strong U.S. ally, which overcame its reservations and indicated that Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal may attend.
“I’m not hiding any secret about the Saudi position. We were hesitant until today,” Faisal said at a news conference after the Arab League meeting. “As long the Arab position has agreed on attending, the kingdom will walk with its brothers in one line.”
Those calculated words capped months of shuttle diplomacy by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who urged Arab leaders to put aside misgivings that Tuesday’s summit would be little more than a photo-op by the outgoing U.S. president. Rice persuaded Egypt and Jordan, and with their help gained the endorsement of Saudi Arabia, which the U.S. regards as the decisive voice in the Arab world.
Syria, an ally of Iran, did not commit to the conference. It has stated that it would go only if Israel’s return of the Golan Heights, which it captured from Syria in the 1967 war, was specifically addressed.
But by late Friday it seemed that Syria was leaning toward attending. Syrian media quoted Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem as saying that the United States has agreed to add the Golan Heights to the agenda.
Many Arab countries had been withholding support pending the results of preconference talks between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, who have failed to produce a joint declaration outlining the goals and timeline of the peace negotiations to follow it. The last formal Israeli-Palestinian talks collapsed in January 2001, early in the most recent Palestinian uprising.