DAMASCUS: Syrian President Bashar Assad and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas sought a unified Arab stance on negotiations with Israel during their meeting in Damascus yesterday, a Palestinian spokesman said.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech last week outlining his government’s policy on the Israeli-Arab conflict had made clear the necessity of a joint Arab stance.
“There should be greater cooperation among Arabs, especially considering that the policies Netanyahu unveiled in his speech do not live up to the minimum demands of the Arabs,” Erekat said. He had initially called the speech “a slap in the face.”
Abbas heads the Fatah faction, which controls the West Bank. Syria hosts political leaders from such rival Palestinian factions as Hamas, who take a harder line on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Abbas also discussed yesterday efforts to achieve Palestinian reconciliation with Bashar. “We agree with Syria that the dialogue should succeed,” Abbas’s aide Nabil Abu Rdainah told reporters.
He was referring to Egyptian mediation between Fatah and Hamas, which is supported by Syria and Iran. Egypt has set July 7 as a deadline to find a solution for divisions between the two groups.
Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, who lives in exile in Syria, cancelled a speech he was due to make later yesterday shortly after Abbas met Bashar. No explanation was given. Abbas’s visit to Syria is the second since May. His aides said Abbas had no scheduled meetings with any Palestinian factions in Syria before leaving for Saudi Arabia for talks with King Abdullah today.
But Khaled Abdul Majid, who heads the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front, said Abbas appears to have prolonged his visit to Damascus and a meeting between Abbas and Meshaal was possible.
The two last met in January 2007 in Damascus and agreed not to shed Palestinian blood between them, but violence between the two groups intensified and Hamas took control of the Gaza strip by force five months later.
Egyptian-brokered negotiations on a Palestinian “national unity” government have faltered over whether the new government would recognize Israel and abandon violence, among other issues. Hamas has so far refused to do either.
“The Syrian and the Palestinian presidents’ positions are similar,” Erekat said. “They share a belief in a just and comprehensive peace in exchange for total withdrawal” from the territories Israel occupied in its 1967 war with Arab states.
He added that Bashar had expressed his support for Egyptian efforts to reconcile rival Palestinian factions.
Erekat said Abbas and Bashar had discussed Abbas’ meetings with US President Barack Obama last month, and both of their meetings with his Middle East envoy, George Mitchell.
