EGYPT: Foreign Ministers from Arab League states are meeting in Cairo today to discuss efforts to restart Middle East peace talks

Record ID: 277529

  • Title: EGYPT: Foreign Ministers from Arab League states are meeting in Cairo today to discuss efforts to restart Middle East peace talks
  • Date: 25th June 2009
  • Summary: CAIRO, EGYPT (JUNE 24, 2009) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF ARAB LEAGUE HEADQUARTERS EGYPTIAN FOREIGN MINISTER AHMED ABOUL GHEIT ARRIVING SUDANESE DEPUTY FOREIGN MINISTER ALI AHMED KARTI ARRIVING AND ENTERING ARAB LEAGUE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY FOREIGN MINISTER RIYAD AL-MALKI ARRIVING SAUDI ARABIAN DELEGATION ARRIVING IRAQI FOREIGN MINISTER HOSHYAR ZEBARI ARRIVING UNITED ARAB
  • Embargoed: 10th July 2009 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Egypt
  • Country: Egypt
  • Reuters ID: LVAC31J8W2WXYSAH6VKXNJ6SJGOD
  • Story Text: Arab Foreign Ministers met in Cairo on Wednesday (June 24) to discuss restarting Middle East peace talks less than three weeks after U.S. President Barack Obama visited Egypt to deliver an address aimed at improving Washington's ties with the Muslim world.
    In that speech, Obama also said he would "personally pursue" a two-state solution.
    Representatives from the 22-state body began arriving this morning for an extraordinary session to discuss the U.S. administration's efforts to restart peace talks, as well as a speech last week by right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in which he endorsed a Palestinian state, with stringent conditions.
    The Palestinians, like Egypt and other Arab states, have so far dismissed Israeli Netanyahu's conditional proposal for a demilitarised Palestinian state.
    Only ten Arab Foreign Ministers are attending the Cairo talks, leaving little likelihood that the League, often criticised as ineffectual, will take tangible action on the peace process.
    The Arab League has put forth a peace initiative in which Israel is offered peace with all of the Arab states if it withdraws from all of the territory it occupied in the June 1967 war.
    The U.S. has given its broad endorsement of the plan, while Israel has said it has reservations.
    Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, also in Cairo on Tuesday, said that Moscow aimed to hold a Middle East peace conference before the end of 2009, a move backed by Egypt and which Russia said also had Israel's approval.
    Russia, which has proposed such a conference in the past, is a member of the Quartet of Middle East negotiators, along with the European Union, the United States and the United Nations.
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