SHARM EL-SHEIKH, 3 June 2003 — Arab leaders will stand by Yasser Arafat as the “legitimate” Palestinian leader despite his absence at a summit here with US President George W. Bush, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said here yesterday.
“Arafat is the elected legitimate leader of the Palestinian people and Abu Mazen is the prime minister,” Maher told reporters as Arab foreign ministers prepared for today’s summit in this Red Sea resort.
In addition to meeting the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Bahrain, Bush will meet here for the first time with Mahmud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, who the United States and Israel now support as their main Palestinian interlocutor.
The United States and Israel have sidelined veteran leader Arafat, whom they blame for the breakdown of the peace process and the violence that erupted in September 2000.
But Maher, when asked by a reporter about Arafat’s role, scoffed at “all this nonsense of grooming Abu Mazen as a rival to Mr. Arafat,” saying it distracted from more important issues.
“What is required is a firm commitment to implementation (of the road map) and monitoring of the implementation,” Maher said, speaking of his expectation from the two summits.
US officials are seeking broad statements of support for the US-backed road map from both the summit in Egypt and a second in Jordan involving Bush, Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The Palestinians have accepted the road map without conditions, while Israel has accepted it with a list of 14 reservations.
Bush, who arrived here yesterday, expressed optimism he could make progress in his first foray into Middle East peace making. Bush, who has stayed clear of the conflict his first two-and-a-half years in office, put a brave face on his mediation efforts while attending the G8 summit in the French alpine resort of Evian.
“I think we’ll make some progress, I know we’ll make some progress,” Bush said while meeting with French President Jacques Chirac in their first one-on-one talks since the Iraq war. Bush vowed to “achieve the vision of two states living side by side” laid out in the internationally drafted Middle East peace road map.
Arab diplomats in Cairo hoped that the US administration would throw its political and economic weight behind the Middle East road map, which envisages establishment of a Palestinian state by 2005. “We hope that President Bush will try to reach an agreement with the five Arab leaders on implementation of the road map,” they added.
Informed sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the success of the peace plan depended on progress in the security situation between the Israelis and Palestinians.
The road map calls on the Palestinians to rein in militant groups and on Israel to make life easier for the Palestinians. It was drawn up by the United States, United Nations, the European Union and Russia.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabeel Shaath said he expected Arab support for the full implementation of the road map. “We hope President Bush is coming here not just to talk but to implement the road map,” he added.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters on the plane that the summit in Aqaba in particular would be a major moment for the reform-minded Abbas. “I think the whole world will be anxious to hear what he has to say,” he said. “This will be a chance for the president, Abu Mazen and Ariel Sharon to stand together and show their determination to move forward” at the summit in Jordan’s Red Sea resort, Powell added.
Arafat played down his own exclusion from the two summits with Bush in an interview published on Sunday by the London-based Arab newspaper Al-Hayat.
