CAIRO, 13 July — Arab states will push for the establishment of a Palestinian state within a two-year timetable, the Palestinian Authority’s Minister of International Cooperation Nabil Shaath said yesterday.
“There is a time ceiling (for a Palestinian state), that was proposed ... by the Palestinian delegation, of a year to end negotiations and a year for implementation,” Shaath told reporters at the end of a meeting of Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo.
Shaath said he believed that the proposals would be presented by Arab delegates meeting in New York this week with the international diplomatic “quartet” of the United States, European Union, United Nations, and Russia.
The Saudi, Egyptian and Jordanian foreign ministers are set to join in talks in New York on July 16 with top officials from the diplomatic quartet.
“We can start on a long period of steps to end Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and to reach a mutually agreed-upon cease-fire... leading to an international conference that will establish permanent negotiations,” Shaath said. “We hope that this will be as close to the Arab peace plan as possible,” Shaath said.
Earlier, Arab foreign ministers backed the Saudi plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, insisting the initiative be implemented as a whole.
“The participants at the foreign ministers conference reiterated a collective Arab commitment to this initiative as a whole without any hesitation and without any change,” Lebanese Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hammoud told a news conference after the meeting.
Present were foreign ministers from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Morocco, Yemen and Bahrain as well as Palestinian Minister Nabil Shaath.
Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal expressed hope the “next meeting of the quartet with representatives of the Arab states will result in an international position that will force Israel to cease aggressive policies toward the Palestinians.”
Other ministers speaking with reporters after the meetings also stressed they believed the Saudi initiative could end the 21 months of fighting between Israel and the Palestinians.
“We are going to promote the Arab peace initiative, and any other initiative should be close to ours,” Syria’s Foreign Affairs Minister Farouq Al-Shara said.
“The meeting stressed a Palestinian state should be a real and active state with East Jerusalem as its capital,” Arab League chief Amr Moussa said, adding the issues of Jerusalem and refugees had to be resolved.
“In this framework, the Arab countries are ready, not only to sign a peace agreement, but to establish peaceful relations as well,” Moussa added.
He said the peace vision expressed by US President George W. Bush included positive aspects but had other aspects which should be discussed.
In other developments, Israeli troops killed two Palestinians and Tel Aviv said its troops will stay in occupied territories for another six months.
Two Palestinians were killed as Israeli forces combed the West Bank and Gaza Strip to hunt for activists.
During a pre-dawn raid on a police station in the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces shot dead a 25-year-old policeman Khaled Al-Khatib and a 13-year-old boy, who was inside a nearby home, Palestinian security and hospital officials said. Israeli forces delayed an ambulance from reaching the boy for two hours, said Dr. Ahmed Rabah, director of Deir El-Balah hospital, adding that Udani had died by the time it finally arrived.
A Palestinian journalist died yesterday of his wounds after he was shot during an Israeli incursion on Thursday in the center of the northern West Bank town of Jenin, Jenin hospital officials said.
Imad Abu Zahra, 35, who worked both as a freelance writer and photographer for a Palestinian publication, bled to death after a bullet severed an artery, according to hospital officials.
Israeli Yediot Ahronot daily said that, more than three weeks after reoccupying all Palestinian cities with the exception of Jericho, the head of the military expected Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to disappear as an influential political figure within the six-month timeframe.
Meanwhile, Israeli military radio said Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah are close to a deal to swap Palestinians such as Marwan Barghouti for Israelis, including the bodies of three dead soldiers.
