JEDDAH, 6 March — Syrian President Bashar Assad voiced his support for a Saudi plan for Middle East peace after talks with the Kingdom’s leaders in Jeddah yesterday, the Saudi Press Agency said. “President Assad voiced his country’s support for Crown Prince Abdullah’s ideas aimed at reaching a just and comprehensive settlement in the region,” an official source told SPA.
The source said Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, and Bashar held “positive and successful talks” in Jeddah, “concurring on all issues they discussed”.
Prince Abdullah’s peace ideas topped the agenda, the agency said, referring to the crown prince’s proposal for normalization of Arab ties with Israel in exchange for full Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab land.
The two leaders “underlined the necessity of setting up a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital,” the agency said. The meeting was also attended by intelligence chief Prince Nawaf and Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal on the Saudi side, and Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam and Foreign Minister Farouk Shara on the Syrian side.
Bashar also held a working session with Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd shortly after flying into Jeddah. The talks covered “the situation in the Middle East in light of Israel’s grave military escalation against the unarmed Palestinian people.”
In a statement in Damascus, Syrian Vice President Muhammad Zuhair Musharqa, lauded the Saudi support for the Palestinian people. He said Bashar’s visit assumes great importance as it comes at a time when Israel is waging a war of extermination against the Palestinians.
He said the visit aimed at exchanging views and coordinating the two countries’ stands on issues facing the Arab nation. “It also seeks to achieve a just and comprehensive peace based on international resolutions,” he added. Such a peace settlement must lead to Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab land to pre-June 1967 lines, the restoration of Palestinian rights including the right of return, self-determination and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, he said.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who is in the United States for talks with President George W. Bush, said Crown Prince Abdullah’s proposal was unprecedented in offering normal relations with Israel. “We have to make use of it,” he added, hours before meeting with Bush. “We have to do whatever we can, with the administration here, to bring the two parties together,” Mubarak told a lunch organized by the Council on Foreign Relations. “They should sit, whether they like it or not. We have to find a solution. They have to break the vicious circle and sit and exchange views with the help of the United States and Egypt and other countries.”
Bush and Mubarak are expected to discuss the Saudi proposal. “The president looks forward to discussing directly with President Mubarak what ideas the president has for how to achieve peace in the region. The president will begin by listening,” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.
Mubarak has invited Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to meet in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh. But Israeli officials said they saw no point in such a meeting at this stage. US Secretary of State Colin Powell said it was up to the parties to decide whether they meet.
