EU FMs to meet Arab peace plan initiators this month
(SHARM EL SHEIKH) - German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has invited the initiators of an Arab Middle East peace plan to join a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Brussels on May 14 for talks.
He extended the invitation Friday to foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Qatar as well as Arab League chief Amr Mussa on the sidelines of an international conference on Iraq here, a source with the German delegation said.
Germany currently holds the rotating EU presidency.
At a March summit in Riyadh, Arab leaders revived a five-year-old peace plan that offers Israel normal relations if it withdraws from all land seized in the 1967 Middle East war, and allows for the creation of a Palestinian state and the return of Palestinian refugees.
The EU has seized on the initiative as a potential way out of the seemingly intractable conflict.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Abdel Ilah Khatib warned the meeting of Arab ministers and EU representatives that there was now momentum in the peace process "that we cannot afford to lose," the source said.
Members of the international quartet for Middle East peace, comprised of the EU, the United Nations, the United States and Russia, were to meet with the Arab foreign ministers here later Friday.
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