Jordan Times
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Palestinians welcome King’s key trip to Ramallah
today
Agencies
The Palestinian government on Saturday welcomed a visit today by King Abdullah
to Ramallah for talks with President Mahmoud Abbas, saying it hoped the trip
would play a key role in supporting the Palestinians.
“We hope that the trip would play a key role in supporting the Palestinian
people, lift the sanctions and back the Arab Peace Initiative,” Palestinian
Information Minister Mustafa Barghouthi told the Jordan News Agency, Petra, from
Gaza.
“We highly appreciate His Majesty King Abdullah’s position on the Palestinian
cause, as well as his sense that the situation in the Palestinian territories is
dangerous and requires a prompt solution.”
The King was to “discuss Arab and international efforts aimed at bringing Israel
and the Palestinians back to negotiations on the Arab peace plan and a two-state
solution”, Petra said on Friday.
A Palestinian official, asking not to be identified, called it an important
visit “to discuss political developments in the region, Arab efforts to relaunch
the peace process and the Arab Peace Initiative,” according to Agence
France-Presse.
The five-year-old Arab peace plan, revived in March at an Arab League summit in
Saudi Arabia, offers Israel full normalisation of relations in return for full
withdrawal from Arab land seized in 1967 and the return of Palestinian refugees.
Government Spokesperson Nasser Judeh told the Associated Press that the
Monarch’s visit “reflects the King’s continuous and well-known position and
efforts to push all sides to the negotiation table and his full support for the
establishment of a Palestinian state.” Nabil Abu Rudeina, Abbas’ spokesman, was
quoted by the official Palestinian news agency, WAFA, as saying the visit “comes
as part of the consultation and coordination between the Palestinian Authority
and Jordan to push forward the peace process and revive it in line with the Arab
Peace Initiative”.
It will be King Abdullah’s first visit to the occupied West Bank since Abbas
became president following a January 2005 election.
In Amman, Palestinian Foreign Minister Ziad Abu Amr said on Saturday that a
decision to resume peace negotiations with Israel was now up to the leaders of
the Jewish state.
“We, the Palestinians and the Arabs, do what we have to do and we are ready and
willing. No one can accuse us of obstructing the political process,” Petra
quoted him as saying. “The ball is now in Israel’s court,” he added.
Abu Amr was in Amman for talks with Foreign Minister Abdul Ilah Khatib on
efforts to promote the peace initiative.