The European Community and the Arab Gulf states signed their first economic cooperation agreement last week and joined in denouncing incidents of “Israeli repression” in the West Bank and Gaza Strip “which are in violation of international law.”
The joint statement also called for an international conference “to achieve a just and lasting peace in the Mideast.”
The statement and the economic agreement were signed in Luxembourg by West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher and the Saudi Arabian foreign minister, Prince Saoud al-Faisal.
Genscher is current chairman of the 12-nation European Community Faisal was representing the six member-states of the Gulf Cooperation Council: Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
The economic cooperation agreement is the first step toward free trade between the European Common Market and the Arab Gulf states.
Meanwhile, Knesset Speaker Shlomo Hillel has been invited to attend a conference of speakers of parliaments in Western European countries, to be held this week in Bern, Switzerland. Hillel is the first Israeli speaker ever invited to such a parlay.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
