Jordanian Foreign Minister Abdel Ilah al-Khatib, on a rare visit to Israel in a bid to quell months of deadly violence with the Palestinians, denounced on Monday Israel's raid on Lebanon as an "unjustified aggression" that could threaten regional stability, reported AFP.
He also warned that the overnight attack on a Syrian radar station in Lebanon would also hamper his efforts to restore confidence between Israel and the Palestinians and pave the way for a resumption of peace talks.
"This is an unjustified escalation that may affect the overall stability and security in the region," Khatib said at a joint press conference with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres after a meeting of about three hours.
"The aggression against Lebanon made my mission more difficult," said Khatib, who held talks in the West Bank with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat last week.
Khatib is the first high-ranking Arab official to visit Israel since hardliner Ariel Sharon was inaugurated prime minister March 7, and since the eruption of the Palestinian Intifada.
His visit triggered fierce condemnation from the Palestinian militant movement Hamas, which said it was "a deviation from the position of the Arab peoples calling for a boycott of the Zionist enemy," a statement said, cited by AFP.
Hamas said his visit, along with continued US-brokered efforts for security contacts between Israel and the Palestinians, "come at the moment that (Israel) is intensifying its terrorism against our people, stretching to Lebanon."
Peres, the leading dove in Sharon's cabinet and who reportedly opposed the raid as "ill-timed," nevertheless, defended the Israeli action.
"These attacks are signals to the Syrians in Lebanon, who did not allow the Lebanese army to deploy in southern Lebanon and prevent Hezbollah from firing on Israel," he told reporters.
PERES: ISRAEL WOULD STUDY JORDANIAN-EGYPTIAN PEACE PLAN
Although the Jewish state has previously rejected a Jordanian-Egyptian peace plan aimed to put an end to the escalating situation in the Palestinian territories, Peres said that Israel would study the plan carefully.
The plan calls for a series of confidence-building measures, including a halt to Israel's settlement activities in the occupied territories and a resumption of negotiations that "preserve" progress made during previous failed talks.
Israel has previously rejected a joint peace plan by Jordan and Egypt, the only two Arab states to have signed peace treaties with Israel, which first emerged earlier this month.
But Ra'anan Gissin, an adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, told The Jerusalem Post that unless there are serious modifications in the plan, "it will go nowhere."
According to Gissin, Sharon objects to the proposal because it sets a deadline for ending final-status talks and also because it will enable negotiations to take place before a cessation of violence.
"Sharon will not fall into the trap of beginning negotiations while there has not yet been a cessation of the shooting," Gissin said.
He added that Sharon will also not "fall into the trap" of agreeing to any deadline to final-status talks because of his concern about what happens if the deadlines are not met.
One diplomatic official told the paper the proposals are intended more to relieve pressure on the Palestinians than as a way for them to gracefully end the Intifada.
"It is an attempt to lessen the pressure on the PA, both internationally - including from Egypt and Jordan - and also internally, to make it look like they are doing something to change the current situation," he said.
Israeli sources had told Haaretz that Sharon will tell Khatib that Israel expects Jordan to reinstate its ambassador to the country.
but Khatib told reports that the ambassador of Jordan in Israel will be back if the situation improves, the closure (on the West Bank and Gaza Strip) is lifted, and military force is no longer used against our Palestinians brethren."
"Jordan wants to fulfill the role of a mediator between Israel and the Palestinians, and one of the prerequisites for this is the return of the ambassador," a diplomatic source in Jerusalem told the paper - Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
