Last update - 00:00 18/11/2007
Arab states to decide Friday on attending regional peace meet
By The Associated Press
Key Arab governments will announce Friday if they will attend a U.S.-backed Mideast peace conference aimed at relaunching the stalled Palestinian-Israeli peace talks, said an Arab League official Sunday.
"The Arab position will be determined at the [Friday] meeting, said Hesham Youssef, a senior aide to the League's Secretary-General Amr Moussa.
Foreign ministers of twelve Arab countries and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas are due to meet at the headquarters of the Arab League in Cairo to forge an Arab strategy on the conference, expected in Annapolis, Maryland.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia have been skeptical over the conference and senior
officials of the two regional heavyweights have hinted that they may even not attend the gathering expected later this month.
Youssef also said Abbas will brief the participants on his ongoing contacts with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert aimed at finalizing a draft statement on the conference.
Youssef did not give further details but Arab diplomats said the ministers will insist that a final statement by the Annapolis meeting will include an Israeli agreement to a Saudi-sponsored land-for-peace deal proposed by Arabs in 2002.
Friday's meeting, part of a Mideast diplomatic flurry of activity, will be chaired by Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal who is expected to make an announcement on the Arab position after the one-day discussions.
Arab states have expressed reservations about the usefulness meeting if it does not address the core issues in the Israeli-Palestinian and broader Arab-Israeli conflicts.
Jordan king in Syria on surprise visit ahead of talks
Jordan's King Abdullah II held talks with President Bashar Assad Sunday after arriving on a previously unannounced trip, his first to the Syrian capital in nearly four years, Syria's official news agency reported.
Jordan's chief government spokesman Nasser Judeh confirmed Sunday that King Abdullah II would be traveling to Damascus to meet Assad, describing the visit as important. He did not, however, detail the topics to
be discussed.
The reason for the surprise visit was not immediately clear, but a Royal
Palace statement issued in Amman said the king's visit is in line with
Jordanian concern for the significance of Syrian participation in Arab efforts aimed at confronting challenges facing the Arab nation.
The statement quoted an unnamed palace official as saying that talks would focus on ways to garner Arab and international support in a way that would fulfill Palestinian aspirations to statehood and ending Israel's occupation of Arab land.
Relations between neighbors Jordan and Syria have been bumpy for years,
particularly in the last few months over a host of political issues. Tensions rose last year in the wake of the summer 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, when Assad called some Arab leaders half men for not supporting Hezbollah during the war.
The last time the Jordanian king visited Syria was in February 2004.
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