Saudis call for Israeli talks with Syria, Lebanon
Foreign Minister al-Faisal tells Annapolis conference serious talks between Israel, Palestinians under international supervision must be followed by launching of Syrian and Lebanese tracks
ANNAPOLIS, Maryland -Saudi Arabia called on Tuesday for a quick start to Israeli peace talks with Syria and Lebanon following an announcement that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations would resume immediately.
"We have come to support the launching of serious and continuing talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis that will address all the core and final status issues," Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told the Annapolis, Maryland Middle East conference.
"These talks must be followed by the launching of the Syrian and Lebanese tracks at the earliest," he said, according to a copy of his remarks released by the Saudi embassy in Washington.
Leaders of the United States, Israel and the Palestinians agreed at the conference to start work immediately on reaching a peace treaty within 13 months that would create a Palestinian state.
Saudi Arabia, an Arab diplomatic heavyweight with close ties to the United States, is the driving force behind an Arab peace initiative offering Israel normal relations with all Arab states if it withdraws from all land it occupied in 1967.
Syria and Lebanon are both front-line states formally at war with Israel. Syrian-Israeli negotiations collapsed in 2000 over the future of the Golan Heights captured by Israel in the 1967 war.
The Suadi minister said an international supervisory mechanism was needed to oversee the progress made on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and to make sure that both parties are holding up their ends of the bargain.
Al-Faisal—whose appearance at Annapolis was key in securing the participation of 16 Arab countries including Syria—clarified that "it is imperative that Israel put in place the steps that it has been requested to implement: the freezing of settlement-building activity, the dismantling of illegal outposts, the releasing prisoners, a cease in construction of the wall (security fence in the West Bank), the removal of Israeli checkpoints and the siege on the Palestinian nation.
"These steps have to be seriously implemented in order for the negotiations on a final status peace accord to succeed," the foreign minister said.
According to al-Faisal, the success or failure of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which Annapolis was meant to resuscitate, will have vast consequences and significance.
"The Israeli-Arab conflict has caused too much pain and suffering and too many lives have been lost," the Saudi prince said.
"A withdrawal from the peace process increases the power of ideological radicals. The sense of despair and frustration can reach a dangerous level."
Reuters contributed to the report
