Speaking to Ma’an News Agency via phone, Palestinian representative to the League of Arab States, Mohammad Sobaih, revealed Tuesday that the Arab League is set to dispatch delegates to member states of the international Quartet for promoting peace in the Middle East.
Sobaih said that the move meant to promote the Arab peace initiative of 2002, Arab countries have recently re-endorsed in their summit meeting held on late March in the Saudi Arabian city of Riyadah.
The peace proposal calls for normal relations with Israel in return for a complete Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Arab territories, Israel has taken over in 1967, in addition to a just solution for the Palestinian refugee problem.
The Quartet, made up of United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia, has welcomed this peace initiative in the hope it would lead to an end of the Arab-Israeli conflict, yet no concrete steps have been taken for this end.
Israel from its part refused the Arab offer, calling it incompatible with the new developments. It dismissed possibility for realizing peace in the short run and expressed unreadness to solve the problem of refugees in accordance with the UN resolution 194.
The Palestinian diplomat also disclosed that some hundred million dollars, pledged by the Arab league, have been remitted to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in aid to the Palestinian people, who suffer an internationally-imposed economic embargo.
For the fourth decade, Israel still occupies large parts of the West Bank- constructing settlements and a notorious separation barrier over there- controls Gaza’s crossing points, takes over the Syrian Golan Heights and reserves parts of the Lebanese soil.
