Amman - The Jordanian government on Monday rejected Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's peace offer with Palestinians,
saying it failed to live up to the 'world consensus' envisaging the
establishment of an independent Palestinian state that lives in peace
with Israel.
'The ideas put forward by the Israeli prime minister yesterday
fails to live up to the consensus of the world community regarding
the bases for a just and comprehensive peace in the region,' Minister
of State for Information Affairs and Communication Nabil Sharif said.
In the first official Jordanian reaction to Netanyahu's address,
Sharif, who also doubles as the official spokesman of the Jordanian
government, said that the new Israeli ideas needed 'fundamental
development'.
In his speech to the Knesset on Sunday, the right-wing Israeli
prime minister accepted, apparently under US pressure, the principle
of Palestinian statehood but said any Palestinian state should be
'demilitarized'.
He also excluded Jerusalem and the issue of Palestinian refugees
who left their homes upon Israel's establishment in 1948 from any
future negotiations with the Palestinians.
'The two-state solution that ensures the setting up of an
independent and viable Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its
capital is the only way for resolving the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict in a regional perspective and in accordance with the UN
resolutions and the Arab peace initiative,' Sharif said.
The Arab peace plan offers Israel recognition by all Arab states
if it pulls out from all Arab territories it occupied in the 1967
Six-Day War, including the West Bank and East Jerusalem which were
then part of Jordan.
Sharif reiterated Jordan's call for re-launching 'serious
negotiations', underscoring the importance of US President Barack
Obama's adoption of the two-state solution as a way out of the
current stalemate in the Middle East.
USA
Your Talkback on this Story