Syrian President Bashar Assad told Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas the Arab League's Follow-Up Committee should not have to sanction the peace talks with Israel, the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat reported Sunday.
The report said Assad confronted Abbas on the matter during the committee's meeting in Libya last week.
According to an Arab diplomat who attended the closed session, Assad said the committee was not the body that is supposed to grant the Palestinians approval to negotiate.
In response, Abbas said the Palestinian issue concerns all Arabs, adding that should the committee refuse to deal with the matter, would mean that the Arab countries have given up on the Palestinian issue.
Other sources told Al-Hayat that the host, Libyan President Muammar Ghaddafi, also argued with Abbas over the Fatah-Hamas dispute, this after the Palestinian leader claimed Hamas was operating on Iran's behalf and that the Islamic Republic was preventing reconciliation between the two factions.
"How can the Palestinians fight Israel when at the same time they are negotiating?" Ghaddafi was quoted as saying.