A US-proposed Middle East peace conference will fail unless there is a definite framework for it, Qatari Foreign Minister Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani said, adding he doubted the talks could be organized by early summer.
He also said any peace meeting should be based on UN Security Council resolutions calling for Israeli withdrawal from Arab lands occupied in the 1967 Middle East war and a Saudi proposal for the Arab world to normalize relations with the Jewish state in exchange.
"We have to build on the Security Council issues and to build on the land of '67," he said. "(There can be) no bargaining on that land ... so the Palestinians feel that they did not give up something more than they should. "The Israelis also have to feel that they will be accepted among the Arabs, to have normalized relations with the Arabs if they do all these things."
Sheikh Hamad said Qatar would support the conference as long as there were clear guidelines for what it hoped to achieve. "We think it's a good idea but we think it needs a lot of preparation," he said outside the State Department after meeting with Powell.
"We have to have a timetable and before the conference everyone (must) know where the limits (are) and what will be achieved," he said. "That cannot be done in a conference like this without preparation before."
Sheikh Hamad said that timetable was probably unrealistic. "I think June is early," he said, adding that without a "skeleton" of what the result would be, the meeting would degenerate into giant disagreement.
"If we don't do it, then we go to the conference just to argue and we don't want the conference to argue," he said. "We need the conference to accomplish peace." (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
