Last update - 00:00 25/09/2007
FM Livni meets Arab leaders in N.Y. in bid to normalize ties
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, met with a number of Arab leaders and diplomats in a bid to normalize ties between Israel and some Arab states.
Livni met Tuesday in New York with the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, stressing to him the importance of strengthening the ties between Arab countries and Israel on the basis of a "staged normalization".
Livni and the Qatar leader also discussed the ongoing talks between Israel and Palestinians leading up to the U.S.-led November peace conference and Qatar's willingness to support the negotiations.
The foreign minister met earlier with the Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit and told him that in order for diplomatic efforts to be successful, Egypt must put a stop to weapon smuggling into Gaza from tunnels dug in Sinai.
Regarding the West Bank, Livni said that "the latest developments have turned the West Bank into a test which could measure the success of the entire peace process."
On Monday, Livni met with the Jordanian and Mauritanian foreign ministers, as well as the deputy foreign minister of Oman, Sayyid Bader, which cut off diplomatic ties with Israel following the outbreak of the second Palestinian Intifada in 2000.
Bader and Livni met during a dinner that took place in order to commemorate the regional water purification plant in Oman, the last remnant of joint cooperation projects between Israel and the Arab world which began following the Madrid Conference in 1991.
Israel, Oman, Morocco, Kuwait, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations all participated in its construction and scientists from the different countries work together through out the year.