Arab League to set up teams for Syria, Mideast peace talks

The Arab League Council, which held its 139th session on the permanent-delegate level here on Monday, adopted a draft resolution to form an Arab ministerial delegation for contacting the world's major power to resolve the Syrian crisis and re-launch the Middle East peace talks. The draft suggests holding consultations with the UN Security Council, the US Administration, Russia, China and the European Union on the agenda of the substantive peace talks within a specific and viable timeframe; it was referred to the Arab Foreign Ministers' Meeting, due here tomorrow. It envisaging forming a ministerial delegation, led by Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem Al Thani and insisting of representatives of Egypt, Jordan and Palestine as well as the League's Secretary General Nabil Al-Arabi, to explore the executive steps vis-a-vis the conflict in Syria. On the Arab-Israeli conflict, the draft resolution reaffirms commitment to fair, permanent and comprehensive peace as a strategic option for stability in the Middle East. Such a settlement can be reached only through complete Israeli pullout from the Palestinian, and other Arab, territories occupied by Israel since June, 1967, and solving the problem of the Palestinian refugees who were forced to leave their homes as a result of the 1948 Middle East war, according to the document. It also envisages establishing an independent fully-sovereign state of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital city in consistency with the relevant UN resolutions. It urges stepping up the lobbing for Palestine's full membership in the UN and its affiliated agencies. The draft calls for holing, as early as possible, the second Paris meeting on the ministerial level to lobby for helping the Palestinian people in the West Bank and enhancing the reconstruction of Gaza Strip. It tasks the Arab group of states to lobby for sending a UN fact-finding mission to the Palestinian occupied territories to verify the illegitimate Jewish settlement expansions there. The group should also lobby for another UN Security Council resolution to condemn the settlement constructions in the occupied territories, the draft suggests, condemning the US for vetoing a similar Arab-sponsored text before. A ministerial delegation should be formed to assess the possibility of re-launching the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks within a specific timeframe and review the viability of the International Diplomatic Quartet which failed so far to make headway in the peace process, according to the draft. The draft welcomes the concord deal, hammed by the Palestinian Fatah and Hamas movements on May 4, 2011, and the subsequent Doha and Cairo declarations, and appreciates the mediation efforts made by Qatar and Egypt. It denounces as "provocative, racist and extremist" the remarks made recently by Israeli acting foreign Avigdor Lieberman against Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. It calls for a special session by the UN General Assembly to discuss the suffering of the Palestinian, and other Arab, detainees at the Israeli jails. It suggests providing an Arab financing for the faltering Palestinian economy at a rate of USD 100 million per month in addition to the USD 500 million for the Aqsa and Jerusalem funds. The draft commends Qatar for hosting an international conference under auspices of the League in support of the Palestinian residents in Jerusalem against the Israeli attempts to evict them of their home and Judaize the holy city. It calls on the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) to shoulder its responsibility in offering all possible care for the Palestinians inside and outside the occupied territories