Jordan Times
Friday, April 20, 2007
King calls on Israel to seize
‘historic chance for peace’
AMMAN (AFP) — King Abdullah told acting Israeli President and Speaker of the
Knesset Dalia Yitzik on Thursday that an Arab peace plan was a historic chance
for peace in the Middle East.
The initiative, reactivated at a summit in Riyadh last month, “constitutes an
historic opportunity to achieve Middle East peace and end decades of conflict
between Arabs and Israelis”, the King told Yitzik and her delegation during a
working lunch in Amman, a Royal Court statement said.
He said the Arab plan “reflected the Arab commitment to peace”, and urged Israel
“to accept it as a basis for restarting negotiations with the Palestinians and
for finding solutions to different aspects of the Arab-Israeli conflict”.
The Arab initiative offers Israel full normalisation of relations in return for
its withdrawal from all Arab land captured in 1967, the creation of a
Palestinian state and — in a key sticking point for Israel — the return of
Palestinian refugees.
“Israelis and Palestinians need to take steps that will build confidence between
them,” the King said. “These steps would build on the political momentum in the
region to advance the peace process and achieve on-the-ground progress.”
The talks were the first to be held between the King and the Israeli official,
who was accompanied by 10 members of parliament.
King Abdullah also emphasised that Israel “must realise that the first step to
ending the Arab-Israeli conflict is the fulfilment of Palestinians’ legitimate
rights, foremost of which is the establishment of an independent Palestinian
state on Palestinian national territory”.
He also stressed the need for the Jewish state to support Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas “as he works to relaunch negotiations with Israel and to alleviate
the harsh living conditions of the Palestinian people”.
Yitzik said she appreciated the King’s “continuing efforts to revive the peace
process” and that she discussed “the Israeli position on negotiations with the
Palestinians”, the statement added, without elaborating.
King Abdullah called Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Wednesday to stress
the importance of keeping the peace process momentum going and drawing up a
timetable for a comprehensive solution.
He stressed “the need to maintain the momentum [to relaunch] the peace process
and agree on a precise timetable for concrete results based on the two-state
solution and the Arab Peace Initiative”, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, said.
On Sunday, the foreign ministers of Israel and Jordan also met to discuss ways
of pushing the peace process forward.