Arab foreign ministers, meeting at the Dead Sea in Jordan stressed on Monday that “a precondition for peace with Israel is an end to its occupation of the Palestinian territory,” the official Palestinian Wafaa News Agency reported.
The foreign ministers said in a statement that will be presented to the summit of Arab leaders, which will convene at the Dead Sea on Tuesday, that they are “still committed to the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative and that a precondition to reach peace is an end to the Israeli occupation of all the Palestinian and Arab land occupied in 1967.”
They stressed the centrality of the Palestinian cause to the Arab world, stressing that occupied East Jerusalem is an Arab city and capital of the State of Palestine.
Low expectations as Arab League chiefs gather in Jordan ahead of the bloc's annual summit on Wednesday https://t.co/g8K3mhSHWM pic.twitter.com/TeBnSnb3yM
— Al Jazeera News (@AJENews) March 27, 2017
They also condemned Israeli practices and policies, which they said: “will destroy the two-state solution and create an apartheid system.”
They urged the countries that support the two-state solution and have not yet recognized the state of Palestine, particularly the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and the European Union member states, “to do so as soon as possible to contribute to peace based on the two-state solution.”
They also condemned British plans to hold celebrations marking 100 years for the infamous Balfour declaration that promised a homeland for Europe’s Jews in Palestine at the expense of its indigenous Palestinian Arab population, and called on Britain to recognize Palestine in reparation for the hardships its then foreign secretary Arthur Balfour’s declaration caused to the Palestinian people.
(Wafaa, PC, Social Media)
