Damascus - A two-day Syrian-hosted Arab summit started
Saturday in Damascus amid a Lebanese boycott and the absence of nine
Arab leaders.
Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah
Saleh and the kings of Jordan, Morocco and Saudi Arabia decided not
to participate in the summit.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem had earlier told a news
conference that the Arab leaders had not come under pressure from the
United States.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad received the participants at the
annual conference, including 10 Arab leaders and the representatives
of 10 Arab countries.
Lebanon has completely boycotted the summit.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas attended the summit, but was
scheduled to leave on Saturday evening to hold talks in Amman with US
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
In a speech opening the summit, Al-Assad said security in the
Middle East can be only achieved through peaceful means, not through
wars and aggression.
He also criticized Israel's understanding of security in the
region.
'The Israeli understanding of security can never be achieved,as
the Israeli occupation of the Arab territories contradicts with peace
and security,' al-Assad said.
He added: 'If security is not mutual, it will be just illusive and
not present.'
The Syrian president used the word 'holocaust' to describe the
Israeli military offensive in Gaza.
'Here we are convening, while the blood of the Palestinian martyrs
who have been killed in the Israeli massacres and its holocaust
hasn't dried,' he said. 'The state-terror of Israel against our Arab
nations represents the most horrible type of terror in the modern
time.'
Al-Assad stressed that all Arab countries have a collective
intention to achieve peace in the region, if only Israel expresses
readiness for it.
'If wars and occupations were the most serious issues that we had
faced within the last decades, the battle for peace wasn't less
important. We realize how important peace is for a long time,' the
Syrian leader said.
Concerning Beirut's political crisis, he said the Lebanese people
were the key players to end the stand-off and elect a new president.
'We are ready to cooperate with any Arab or non-Arab efforts to
end the crisis there,' Assad pledged.
Abbas, meanwhile, called on the gathering to help the Palestinians
get Arab and international protection in the Palestinian territories.
'Amid the ongoing Israeli escalation in the West Bank, Gaza and
Jerusalem, we are seeking Arab and international protection of our
people,' Abbas said.
His speech focused on the Israeli practices in the Palestinian
territories, mainly the expansion of Jewish settlements, building the
wall, arrests in the West Bank and the military offensives on the
Gaza Strip.
'Israel is practicing collective punishments against the
Palestinian people. It hasn't stopped the ongoing arrests of
Palestinians in the West Bank, keeping in jail more than 11,000
people,' said Abbas.
Abbas said he had offered a full and mutual truce with Israel
and a plan to rule Gaza Strip crossings, including the crossing on
the border between Gaza Strip and Egypt.
Abbas also said that the Palestinian Authority accepted the Yemeni
initiative of reconciliation, where he called on Hamas 'to end its
control of Gaza and accept the commitments of Palestine Liberation
Organization to the peace process.'
The seven-point Yemeni-brokered initiative of reconciliation
between rival Fatah and Hamas called for holding early legislative
and presidential elections in the Palestinian territories.
'We accepted the Yemeni initiative and we believe that it should
be implemented without any amendment or changes,' said Abbas about
the Yemeni plan which calls for a restoration of the Gaza situation
to that before June 2007 when Hamas took sole control of the strip
after bloody fighting with Fatah.
However, Hamas said it only accepted the Yemeni initiative as
being the basis to resume a dialogue on all the outstanding issues.
The summit plans to issue its final statement on Sunday.
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