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US officials, Arab League reaffirm peace initiative

 

by Joseph Earnest May 1, 2013  

Newscast Media WASHINGTONVice President Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry met with senior Arab League officials to discuss the 10-year-old Arab Peace Initiative’s role in helping to resolve the long-standing Arab-Israeli conflict.

"During the course of those discussions, on behalf of the president of the United States, I underscored the Arab League’s very important role that it is playing and has determined to play in bringing about a peace to the Middle East and specifically by reaffirming the Arab Peace Initiative … with a view to ending the conflict," Kerry said at an April 29 press conference following their meeting.

Biden and Kerry met with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al Thani, chairman of the Arab Peace Initiative follow-up committee; Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby; and senior officials from Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories and Saudi Arabia at Blair House, across from the White House.

The Arab Peace Initiative was proposed as a comprehensive plan at the 2002 Beirut Summit of the Arab League by the then crown prince, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. It was re-endorsed at the 2007 Riyadh Arab League Summit.

The initiative calls for the following:

• An end to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

• The 22-member Arab League to provide full normalization of relations with Israel in exchange for Israel’s withdrawal to its June 4, 1967, borders, including East Jerusalem.

• A "just settlement" of the Palestinian refugee crisis based on U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194, which ended the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and which resolves that any refugees desiring to return to their homes and living in peace be able to do so or be offered compensation.

At the Blair House conference, Prime Minister Hamad told journalists that the league reaffirmed its peace initiative based on a two-state solution. Hamad also said that they agreed to a modification to the peace initiative which allows for a “comparable and mutual agreed minor swap of the land” between the Israelis and Palestinians recognizing the reality of burgeoning communities that have grown up in the years since.

Kerry told journalists after the meeting: "We've had a very positive, very constructive discussion in the course of the afternoon with positive results."

President Obama had outlined in May 2011 his vision of Middle East peace with the two states — Israel and a Palestinian state — living side by side in peace and security brought about through direct negotiations between the two parties. Obama also stressed that the 1967 borders were part of the basis for an Arab-Israeli settlement.

The Arab Peace Initiative has the support of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority.

Kerry said that U.S. officials and the Arab League delegation "agreed that peace between Israelis and Palestinians would advance security, prosperity and stability in the Middle East." They also agreed to continue with the peace consultations.                                Add Comments>>

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

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