EGYPT: US Secretary of State meets with Foreign Ministers Jordan, Egypt and the six Gulf Arab states

Arab officials spoke vehemently of the need to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after meeting the U.S. secretary of State on Tuesday, with one likening it to a disease and another calling it a scourge. The Egyptian and Saudi foreign ministers, speaking after talks with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, did not directly demand Washington do more to promote peace but both made clear they hoped renewed U.S. efforts would help. "The Palestinian problem is the scourge of this region," Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit told reporters at a joint news conference with Rice in Cairo, where she met senior officials from eight Arab nations. "The issue is how to make peace. And in order to make peace, you have to identify the problem, the cause of whatever that is happening in this part of the world ... and we keep telling everybody that it is the Palestinian problem and the lack of a settlement for the Palestinians," he added. "Ever since the problem arose of Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the region has been destabilized. Like a disease on ... the body, it calls for other diseases to attack that weakened body," Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told reporters after meeting Rice earlier in Jeddah. "It is the hope that the present efforts of the United States will restart the peace process," he added. Rice, who is to meet Palestinian and Israeli officials later in the week, is visiting the Middle East to try to garner Arab assistance to support Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as well as embattled governments in Lebanon and Iraq. Rice also called for an end to clashes between forces loyal to the Palestinian government led by Islamist group Hamas and the Fatah movement of President Abbas that have killed 12 people and wounded more than 100 in the past two days. "Innocent Palestinians are caught in this violence and in this crossfire, and we call on all parties to stop ... the Palestinian people deserve calm," she told reporters in Jeddah. The violence is part of a wider power struggle between the Hamas-led government, which came to power in March and remains officially committed to the destruction of Israel, and Abbas, who favours a two-state peace deal between Israel and a Palestinian state in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Rice called on Hamas to renounce violence, recognise Israel and respect past peace deals -- conditions for a resumption of international aid that it has so far rejected. The United States has sought to bolster Abbas at every turn. It was not clear what other Arab states might do to support him and neither the Saudi nor the Egyptian officials offered details on how they might help. Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have run into the ground in recent years after the Palestinians began an uprising against Israeli occupation following a failed effort by U.S. President Bill Clinton to broker an agreement in 2000. Arab officials have privately criticised U.S. President George W. Bush for not working hard enough to try to resolve the conflict. Some analysts say there are limits to what the United States can do while the Palestinians remain divided. Rice said she will meet Abbas in Ramallah on Wednesday. She also plans to see Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on her trip.

ITN Source | October 4, 2006

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