Arab League proposes new Mideast peace
conference
Sun 12 Nov 2006 18:10:16 GMT
By Alaa Shahine
CAIRO, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Arab League foreign ministers meeting in
an emergency session in Egypt on Sunday called for a fresh
international peace conference to resolve the Arab-Israeli dispute
based on the principle of land for peace.
The Arab ministers also pledged to break financial sanctions on the
Palestinian Authority, but gave scant details as to how that would
be accomplished.
The ministers, who convened at the Cairo-based Arab League over
Wednesday's killing of 19 Palestinian civilians by Israeli fire in
Gaza, said in a communique that permanent members of the United
Nations Security Council, Israel and Arab parties would be invited
to attend the peace conference.
The meet would be aimed at "reaching a just and comprehensive
solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict on all tracks according to
the relevant international resolutions and the principle of land
for peace", the communique said.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar of the militant group
Hamas sidestepped whether his group would attend such a peace
conference alongside Israel.
"Will this conference be held or not? What's the agenda of the
conference? We don't know. I leave this matter to the future," he
told reporters.
The Israeli army, which says Wednesday's shelling was aimed at
preventing rocket attacks on Israel, said the deaths were caused by
a technical malfunction.
Israel launched a major offensive in Gaza in June after Palestinian
gunmen captured an Israeli soldier and killed two others in a
cross-border raid. The military assault has killed more than 370
Palestinians, around half of them civilians. Three Israeli soldiers
have been killed.
FINANCIAL SANCTIONS
The ministers said that they would refuse to abide by crippling
sanctions imposed by the United States and Europe after Hamas
ousted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party in
elections in January.
"There will be no compliance with any restriction imposed. ... The
Arab banks have to transfer money (to the Palestinians)," Arab
League Secretary-General Amr Moussa told a news conference.
The decision came as Hamas and Fatah opened talks on allocating
cabinet seats in a unity government that Palestinians hope will
lead to the easing of Western sanctions that have deepened hardship
in the occupied West Bank and in Gaza.
The Arab ministers said they would agree on mechanisms to bypass
the embargo. One Arab diplomat said that after difficulties earlier
this year, the League was able to successfully transfer $100
million to the Palestinian Authority, although he did not give
details of how the transfer was made.
The diplomat said the problem was not finding a bank willing to do
it, but persuading donor states to produce the money.
The decision to ignore sanctions coincided with a Palestinian call
for aid, particularly to help rebuild the town Beit Hanoun, the
site of Wednesday's deadly shelling.
"Beit Hanoun is a disaster area that needs $50 million to rebuild
what the latest incursion has destroyed and to rescue the families
of the martyrs and wounded immediately and urgently," Zahar
said.
"Our people are looking to you to provide the highest degree of
support and assistance and to help lift the unjust embargo," he
told the ministers
Moussa said Kuwait had announced during the meeting a pledge of $30
million to the Palestinian Authority via the Arab League.