Voice of America Report on Solana's Meeting with Saudi Officials - 2002-02-28

Javier Solana, the senior foreign policy official of the European Union, discussed Saudi Arabia's new plan for establishing peace in the Middle East during a meeting with high-ranking Saudi officials yesterday. I draw your attention to the report by Tatyana Anderson, a Voice of America journalist in this regard: Mr. Solana met with Saudi officials in Jeddah on the Red Sea coast and discussed various aspects of the plan proposed by Saudi Arabia for establishing peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The senior foreign policy official of the European Union did not speak to reporters after his meeting with Saudi leaders, but his spokesperson stated that during this meeting, Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia told Mr. Solana that he is trying to officially present his plan at the Arab leaders' summit in March. A Saudi official told reporters that, based on yesterday's negotiations between Saudi leaders and the senior foreign policy official of the European Union, the Riyadh government expects the European Union to play a larger and more significant role in the peace process in the Middle East. According to the Saudi plan, which was first mentioned in an interview last week by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, if Israel agrees to return the territories it occupied in the 1967 Middle East war and reverts to the pre-1967 borders, Arab countries will also establish normal relations with Israel. The Saudi proposal has received significant support in the Arab world, and the Israeli Foreign Ministry has also spoken positively about it. However, Middle Eastern analysts doubt that this plan, which has also been welcomed by Western officials, will ultimately be approved by Israel. Hassan Nafaa, head of the political science department at Cairo University, says the idea of exchanging land for peace has been raised for a long time but has never been confirmed by Israel. Mr. Nafaa states that he has never heard any Israeli official explicitly say that Israel is willing to withdraw from the occupied territories if Arab countries are ready to normalize relations with Israel. Therefore, I do not know what the benefit of this plan is. Israel emphasizes the issue of normalizing relations with Arab countries as if this is the main and real obstacle to establishing peace in this region of the world, forgetting that the real obstacle is Israel's refusal to return to the 1967 borders. Following his discussions with Saudi leaders in Jeddah, Javier Solana went to Cairo to inform Egyptian leaders of the results of his talks and to conduct further discussions about the Saudi plan. Meanwhile, two senior Palestinian officials, including Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, also went to Cairo yesterday to discuss the Saudi peace plan with Egyptian leaders.