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Asharq Al-Awsat
Asharq Al-Awsat
World
Tunis- Asharq Al-Awsat

Arab Summit Showcases Unity Against US Israeli Policy

Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi, center left, stands with Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz, left, Jordan's King Abdullah II, center right, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during the group photo with Arab leaders, ahead of the 30th Arab Summit in Tunis, Tunisia, Sunday, March 31, 2019. (Zoubeir Souissi, Pool photo via AP)

Leaders meeting in Tunisia for the annual Arab League summit on Sunday were united in their condemnation of Trump administration policies seen as unfairly biased toward Israel.

This year's summit comes against a backdrop of ongoing wars in Syria and Yemen, rival authorities in Libya and a lingering boycott of Qatar by the Arab Quartet. Algeria's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir skipped the meeting as they contend with mass protests against their long reigns.

Representatives from the 22-member league - minus Syria - aim to jointly condemn President Donald Trump's recognition of Israeli control over the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 war, and Trump's decision last year to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

At the opening of the summit, King Salman said Saudi Arabia "absolutely rejects any measures undermining Syria's sovereignty over the Golan Heights" and supports the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with east Jerusalem as its capital.

His remarks echoed those of senior Arab officials before Sunday's summit of the Arab League, which usually ends with a final declaration agreed by the 22 member states.

He added that Iran's meddling was to blame for instability in the region.

Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit said that interferences regional rivals Iran and Turkey have "worsened some crises and created new problems."

Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi said Arab leaders also needed to ensure the international community understood the importance of the Palestinian cause to Arab nations.

Regional and international stability should come through "a just and comprehensive settlement that includes the rights of the Palestinian people and leads to the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital," Essebsi said.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who addressed the meeting in Tunis, said any resolution to the Syrian conflict must guarantee the territorial integrity of Syria "including the occupied Golan Heights".

European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said that ignoring United Nations Security Council resolutions on the Golan Heights was "not a solution".

Mogherini also said a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine was "the only viable and realistic solution ... we have a responsibility to prevent the two state solution from

being irreversibly dismantled," she told the summit.

"Any future plan will have to recognize the internationally agreed parameters including on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, and the status of Jerusalem as the future capital of the two states."

One of the things that have united the Arab League over the last 50 years is the rejection of Israel's occupation of the Golan Heights as well as east Jerusalem and the West Bank, territories seized in the 1967 war that the Palestinians want for their future state.

The international community, including the United States, largely shared that position until Trump upended decades of US policy by moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem last year and recognizing Israel's 1981 annexation of the strategic Golan plateau earlier this month.

Mahmoud Khemiri spokesman of the summit, said there will be a "strong resolution" on Golan.

Lebanon's Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil said Saturday that Arab ministers had voiced support in a preparatory meeting for a declaration that Trump's Golan move violates the UN Charter, which prohibits acquiring territories by force.

In Syria, small protests against Trump's Golan move were held in different parts of the country.

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