JEDDAH, 2 August 2007 — In a major push toward the creation of an independent Palestinian state, Saudi Arabia threw its weight behind the upcoming US-sponsored Middle East peace conference.
Addressing a press conference with visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates at the Conference Palace here yesterday, Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal indicated that the Kingdom may attend the make-or-break conference tentatively set for September. The conference’s venue is yet to be decided but it will most likely be held in the United States.
“We are interested in a conference that deals with the substantive matters of peace, the issues of real substance,” said Prince Saud. “If that does so, it becomes of great interest for Saudi Arabia, and should we then get an invitation from Secretary Rice to attend that conference we will look very closely and very hard at attending it.”
If Saudi Arabia does indeed take part in the conference this will be the first time it will be sitting alongside Israel on a negotiating table. Saudi Arabia has no diplomatic relations with Israel. The move indicates that Saudi Arabia is eager to take every possible step to see the creation of a Palestinian state. Palestine remains close to the heart of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, and he is ready to go the extra mile to realize the dream of every Muslim and every Arab.
King Abdullah was the prime mover behind an Arab peace proposal made at an Arab League summit in Beirut in 2002. It was relaunched in Riyadh in March this year and offers the Jewish state full diplomatic ties with the 22 Arab countries in return for a withdrawal from Arab territories occupied in 1967.
The Kingdom had welcomed US President George W. Bush’s call for the conference when it was made last month in Washington. At that time, a Saudi Foreign Ministry official said the US conference proposal was particularly welcome because it specifically, and for the first time, called for an end to Israeli occupation.
Prince Saud reiterated that the conference should advance peace in the Middle East and not just be a talking shop. He said President Bush’s initiative contained many positive elements, including the creation of a viable Palestinian state and the return of Palestinian refugees.
At the press conference, Rice said Arabs and Israelis should take hold and resolve the conflict. “This is a time for opportunity, a time to seize opportunities,” she said, urging careful and cautious preparation to avoid failure.
King Abdullah, in his Tuesday night meeting with Rice and Gates, reiterated the importance of resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict, which, he said, will lead to the solution of several regional issues. Prince Saud said the Arabs have expressed their serious willingness to resolve this conflict through the peace proposal.
He said Israel should now prove its seriousness in dealing with the peace process. “It should avoid political maneuvering...The Israelis should take practical measures for the promotion of peace. They should respond to this international movement for peace,” he said.
Responding immediately after Prince Saud’s statement, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that the Jewish state hopes that Saudi Arabia will attend the peace conference. “We hope that many Arab countries will attend this international meeting, including Saudi Arabia,” said a statement from Olmert’s Jerusalem office. “This meeting can grant an umbrella for the bilateral talks between Israel and the Palestinians,” the statement added.
In another significant development, Prince Saud indicated that the Kingdom may soon return an ambassador to Iraq. “A diplomatic mission from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will visit Baghdad to explore the possibility of reopening the embassy,” he said.
Iraq reopened its embassy in Saudi Arabia last February. It was closed in December 1990 on the eve of the 1991 Gulf War. The two countries restored diplomatic relations in July 2004. But the Kingdom’s embassy in Iraq remains shut because of the insecurity in the country.
Prince Saud said the Kingdom was doing everything it could to help stabilize Iraq. “But,” he said, “it was incumbent on the Nuri Al-Maliki government in Iraq to achieve unity and equality for all groups and stop external interference.
“The Kingdom is keen to continue supporting regional and international efforts to achieve security and stability in Iraq...But the success of these efforts hinges on achieving social justice and national unity among Iraqis of all ethnic and religious groups,” he said.
Prince Saud took exception to recent remarks by America’s UN ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, in which he complained that some neighbors of Iraq, including Saudi Arabia, were undermining efforts to stabilize the US-occupied nation.
“I was astounded by what he said, especially since we had never heard from him this criticism when he was here in the region (as the US ambassador to Iraq),” Prince Saud said. “He must have been influenced by the atmosphere at the United Nations when he went to New York.”
Prince Saud said the Kingdom was doing everything possible to protect its borders with Iraq. “In fact, terrorists are coming from Iraq into Saudi Arabia and not going from Saudi Arabia into Iraq,” he added.
Rice sought to play down Khalilzad’s complaints about Riyadh. “We are good friends, we are allies, we’ve been so for decades,” she said. “It doesn’t mean that there won’t be disagreements about policy, tactics from time to time.”
Prince Saud said the crisis in Lebanon also came up for discussion during the king’s meeting with Rice and Gates. “We discussed the Lebanese crisis and the continuation of tension there despite major economic and political support for Lebanon and the extensive Arab League and international efforts to resolve the crisis.”
Saudi Arabia, he said, has called on all Lebanese parties to resort to rationality and wisdom and give priority to national interest. “We want them to resolve their political issues through dialogue and through constitutional means with a view to preserving the unity and stability of Lebanon. They should pay no heed to foreign intervention, which does not seek prosperity for Lebanon and its people,” he said.
Prince Saud said Saudi Arabia and the US also discussed the nuclear issue and the importance of the Gulf region and the Middle East to be free from weapons of mass destruction. “We reiterated our stand that the solution to the current conflict should come through diplomatic efforts without exacerbating tension in the region,” he said.
Prince Saud expressed satisfaction with Saudi-US cooperation in countering terrorism and fighting this scourge and underlined the importance of joint cooperation until terrorism was uprooted. He described the Saudi-US talks as positive, frank and transparent.
Rice and Gates, who are touring the region in a bid to inject new momentum into peacemaking between Israel and the Palestinians, left Saudi Arabia yesterday afternoon.
Ordinary Arabs, meanwhile, greeted the US bid to restart the peace process with skepticism. “Forceful declarations, high hopes, a grandiose plan and in the end it all comes to nothing but shattered hopes and despair,” said a Riyadh-based political analyst.
“We are used to hearing talk of initiatives, proposals of conferences that most of the time achieve nothing,” said Mamdouh Zackout, a Palestinian refugee based in Jeddah. “We have yet to see if this time it is different or if it will be a scenario that we have already seen.”
