Arab leaders this week called on Israel’s prime minister-elect to continue the peace process and to honor the accords signed by the outgoing government.
Jordan’s King Hussein hosted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat at the Read Sea port of Aqaba on Wednesday to coordinate their positions in the wake of Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s razor-thin victory in last week’s elections.
In post-election declarations aimed at allaying Arab concerns, Netanyahu said he was committed to pursuing the peace process.
But statements the Likud leader made throughout the campaign indicated that his approach to negotiations would be different from the land-for-peace principles that formed the Labor government’s basis of negotiations with Israel’s Arab neighbors.
During the campaign, Netanyahu voiced his staunch opposition to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, to an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights and to ceding my portion of Jerusalem to the Palestinians.
In remarks made in English at the Aqaba meeting, Arafat said he would “very soon” declare the formation of an independent Palestinian state with eastern Jerusalem as its capital.
But Arafat aides later downplayed any implication that the declaration was imminent, adding that Arafat’s imprecise English may have led to a misinterpretation of his remarks.
Israeli newspaper reported Wednesday that a close adviser to netanyahu, Dore Gold, had made a private visit to the Jordanian capital of Amman on Sunday.
The papers speculated that the visit was timed to precede the Aqaba summit and conveyed a message to senior Jordanian officials of Netanyahu’s commitment to the peace process.
At a joint news conference after the summit, the three Arab leaders were cautiously optimistic.
Mubarak said he “had a feeling” the Netanyahu government would honor the Israeli Palestinian accords.
Hussein said he did not think that the outcome of the elections was a referendum on the peace process, but rather an internal Israeli competition between “two different people for prime minister.”
Arafat said he was sure that “the agreements signed will be observed and will be implemented.”
The Aqaba summit was part of a flurry of high-level Arab meetings convened to discuss the Israeli elections.
On Monday, Mubarak met in Cairo with Syrian President Hafez Assad. The two are expected to meet with Saudi King Fahd this weekend in the Saudi capital of Riyadh.
In another development, Netanyahu phoned Wednesday the Omani foreign minister, Yusef Ben Alawi, and stressed the importance of deepening Israeli-Omani foreign minister, spokesman for Netanyahu said.
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