WASHINGTON – THE United States urged Arab leaders to remain focused on a
Saudi Middle East peace initiative, while it pressed for
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Egyptian President Hosni
Mubarak to attend the Arab League summit in Beirut.
The White House said that President George Bush had
”high hopes” the meeting will be a ”summit that focuses on peace”
regardless of who shows up for it.
”No matter what decisions are made about attendance, there still
will be an Arab League summit,” White House representative Ari Fleischer told reporters.
Fleischer spoke before Mubarak made his surprise decision and
before Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, bucking US pressure to
permit Arafat to travel to the meeting, said conditions were ”not
ripe” for such travel, citing ongoing violence.
Later, the Palestinian leadership said that even if Sharon did
grant permission for the trip, Arafat would not attend.
”Yasser Arafat will not travel to Beirut for the Arab summit and
will stay in the Palestinian territories,” the leadership said in a
statement that added Arafat would ”stay with his people to face the
Israeli aggression”.
Arafat is now scheduled to use a satellite television link to
address the two-day meeting from the West Bank town of Ramallah,
where he has been trapped by an Israeli army blockade for four
months.
A senior US official on late Tuesday held out hope that last-minute
negotiations with Israel might result in Arafat going to the
meeting in Beirut.
The official said US diplomats in the region, including special
Middle East envoy Anthony Zinni, continued to lobby for Arafat to
attend and were also hopeful that Mubarak might reverse his
decision to stay away from the summit.
”There are still a lot of things that haven’t gelled yet, we’re
not sure this is over yet,” the official said, referring to
positions taken on Tuesday by Arafat, Mubarak and Sharon.
”We’re staying in touch with all the parties and continuing to
work the situation,” the official said.
Washington has been very concerned that unless Arafat went to
the summit, the leaders at the meeting would focus on his absence
rather than the Saudi plan.
But any problems caused by Arafat’s absence now appear to be
compounded by Mubarak’s decision not to attend.
Washington had been counting on Mubarak, a key US ally, to be a
moderating voice at the summit.
State Department representative Richard Boucher compared Mubarak’s
attendance at the summit in a similar way to Arafat’s.
”We do think on a matter of policy that it’s good for Arafat to
be able to go,” he said. ”We do think on a matter of policy it’s good for the Arabs to
get together and discuss peace with Israel.”
”It’s not our meeting,” Boucher said. ”We’re not taking
attendance. We’re not telling people who to go and where to go to.”
At the same time, he stressed that Mubarak would still be
represented in Beirut by other Egyptian officials.
”Mubarak has been a very important player in the peace process,”
Boucher said. ”Whether in the end he either goes or doesn’t go to
Beirut, I’m sure he’ll continue to be an important player in the
peace process.”
The Saudi plan would normalise Israeli-Arab relations once the
Jewish state withdraws to pre-1967 borders, abandoning its claim to
the Golan Heights on the border with Syria and territory it won in
the Six Day War that followed an unprovoked attack from Lebanon.
The Saudi plan would also create an independent Palestinian
state, with its capital in East Jerusalem. – Sapa-AFP