Jordan Times
Friday, May 4, 2007
King reiterates Palestinian
state top Jordanian priority
AMMAN (JT) — King Abdullah on Thursday reiterated that establishing an
independent Palestinian state is a top Jordanian priority.
The King told a group of Palestinian thinkers and opinion leaders at a meeting
that Jordan is committed to exerting diplomatic and political efforts to revive
the Middle East peace process and push for resuming Palestinian-Israeli
negotiations, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.
The Monarch said Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli opinion leaders play an
important role to promote peace and help realise Mideast peoples’ aspiration for
ending the conflict.
He called on the thinkers to explain to their Israeli counterparts that Arabs
are strongly committed to peace.
The King added that gathering momentum in the Israeli society was necessary for
backing international peace efforts.
King Abdullah said the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which enjoys Arab consensus,
provides a suitable launchpad for Palestinian-Israeli negotiations that would
lead to tangible results.
The initiative called on Israel to withdraw from all land occupied in the 1967
Middle East war, reach an “agreed, just” solution for Palestinian refugees and
accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem
as its capital.
In return, Arab states would consider the conflict over, sign a peace treaty
with Israel and establish normal relations with the Jewish state.
After the plan was relaunched at the Riyadh Arab summit in March, Israeli Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert said he saw positive points in it, though Israel opposes
the return of Palestinian refugees to their former homes in what is now the
Jewish state and wants to retain major settlement blocks in the West Bank.
The King yesterday said “peoples of the region have no option but to achieve a
just peace that would end Israeli occupation, establish a viable Palestinian
state and guarantee security for the Jewish state”.