ID :
206794
Tue, 09/13/2011 - 09:56
Auther :

Meeting of Arab Peace Initiative Committee Begins

Cairo, September 12 (QNA) - A ministerial meeting of the Arab Peace Initiative Committee, chaired by HE the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabor Al Thnai and attended by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Arab League Secretary General Nabil Al Araby, the foreign relations chief of the EU Catherine Asheton and Japan's envoy for peace in Middle East Yutaka Iimura, began here tonight at the headquarter of the Arab League.
​ The meeting will discuss the final steps and mechanisms taken by the Palestinian and Arab sides to mobilize international support for Palestine's bid for full membership at the United Nations in the next few days as well as international recognition of a Palestinian state on the border of 4 June 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital.
At the beginning of the meeting, HE the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabor Al Thani gave a speech in which he expressed the hope to see the meeting affirming 'we are fully prepared to start in order to reach the goal', especially having the Arab plan to move approved in the previous meeting in Doha, considering the developments and the follow up of the situation and taking necessary steps regarding the arrangements, which fall within the international efforts in support of the Palestinian right to establish their independent state, and presenting the entitlement recognition of Palestinian state to the United Nations to obtain full membership in the organization.
​His Excellency stressed the importance of the recognition through which the Palestinians enjoy all their rights and have an honorable seat in the international community.
  ​We have come a long way in convincing the world countries to recognize the State of Palestine, and we see every day new capitals join the list of supporters of the legitimate Palestinians' right to self-determination to establish their independent state with full sovereignty on their land, HE the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister said.
  ​He explained that this right is stipulated by all international laws and conventions, since the League of Nations in 1922, confirmed by the United Nations in 1967 which reiterated it again and again, and endorsed by the International Court of Justice over the past years. The Security Council recognized that the occupied Palestinian territories form the basis of the Palestinian state, especially in the resolution 242 that considered the 1967 borders as the geographical unity of the State of Palestine.
  ​HE Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabor Al Thani pointed out that Israel itself had recognized the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination when it signed the Oslo accords, and acknowledged that in its official letters known to all, a matter which shows that the right of the Palestinian people to establish their own state is moral and legal one that all States should stick to it. The Palestinians must seek that right and exercise it.
HE Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jabor Al Thani said the Arab Peace Initiative Committee was acting according to complete Arab authorization, given that the Palestinian cause is a central issue for the Arabs and is one of the major pillars of the Arab policy. This  cause is one of the clearest and most sensitive Arab issues, he stressed. Hence, the Arabs agreed to go the UN to request the full membership of Palestine to be established within the Pre-1967 War borders , with Jerusalem as its capital.
  ​The Arab Peace Initiative Committee has canvassed international support for the Arabs right to the membership  of Palestine and adopted the procedural and executive steps to ensure success of the move and to conduct the required contacts within a set time limit and a plan.
  ​The Cairo meeting will look into the steps relevant  to the decision of heading to the UN , he said, pointing out that the decision is an Arab requirement that comes in implementation of the aspirations of the Palestinian people and their leadership which looks at the international recognition of a Palestinian state as a historic opportunity that must not be wasted. (END)

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