CAIRO: Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit said on Wednesday that US President Donald Trump’s plan for the Middle East was “a great violation of the legitimate rights of Palestinians.” “Any serious plan to achieve peace must meet the expectations of both parties,” Aboul Gheit said in a statement issued by the pan-Arab body.
Trump unveiled his plan for the Middle East on Tuesday, proposing the creation of a Palestinian state and Israeli control over Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the strategic Jordan Valley.
Palestinians, who have boycotted the Trump administration since its December 2017 decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, were not involved in the plan’s development.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has taken part in previous US-led peace talks with Israel, vowed Trump’s plan will “not pass.” Abbas made the statement in the West Bank city of Ramallah following a meeting of various Palestinian factions including Hamas, which pledged to “resist the deal in all its forms. After we heard all this trash, we say ‘no’ again to the ‘deal of the century,’” says the Palestinian leader.
“A just and sustainable peace cannot be achieved while ignoring the reality of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories since 1967,” Aboul Gheit said.
“We are open to any effort in order to achieve peace,” he added.
The foreign ministers of Arab League member states will hold an extraordinary meeting on Saturday to discuss Trump’s plan.
The European Union said it would also “study and assess” Trump’s proposal. The plan would be examined against the EU’s “firm and united commitment to a negotiated and viable two-state solution that takes into account the legitimate aspirations of both the Palestinians and the Israelis,” the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said.
Sweden’s top diplomat underlined the need for the Palestinians to be part of future negotiations to solve the issue of settlements.
“The mention of a two-state solution and that the Palestinians have a right to their own state is positive, but the proposed Palestinian state is very small and divided,” Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde said on Swedish Radio.
Qatar said it welcomes all efforts for “a long-standing peace in the occupied Palestinian territories,” according to Qatar’s official news agency.
Saudi Arabia’s King Salman reiterated in a phone call with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas his country’s support for Palestinian rights, the SPA news agency reported.
Syria condemned and rejected the plan as “a recipe for giving in to the usurping occupation.” An official source with the Syrian Foreign Ministry said in a Wednesday statement that the US plan offered fresh the alliance between the United States and Israel.
Syria calls on the international community to condemn this US contempt for the international legitimacy and to uphold its resolutions to end the Israeli occupation of Arab and Palestinian territories, the source said. — dpa
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