RIYADH (AFP) — Washington has proposed that Arab states attending next week's US-sponsored Middle East peace conference hold a follow-up meeting in Moscow next year, an Arab diplomat said on Saturday.
"The arrangements proposed by the United States to Arab countries include holding a similar conference in Moscow in January that would discuss the Syrian and Lebanese tracks of the peace process, in addition to the Palestinian track," the diplomat told AFP, requesting anonymity.
The Riyadh-based diplomat did not elaborate on the proposal, but it is apparently designed to reassure Arab countries that Russia will have a major role in the Middle East peace process.
The US-sponsored conference formally kicks off in Annapolis, Maryland, on Tuesday with US President George W. Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.
Oil powerhouse Saudi Arabia and other Arab states will attend the conference alongside Egypt and Jordan, the only two Arab countries to have peace treaties with Israel.
The Annapolis conference is aimed at reviving Palestinian-Israeli peace talks after a seven-year freeze.
Russia is among more than 40 countries invited to attend the meeting, and along with the United States is a member of the Middle East diplomatic Quartet, which also comprises the United Nations and European Union.
According to the Arab diplomat, the United States has also suggested that the Annapolis conference establish a follow-up committee that would monitor future negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
The committee would draw its membership from the Quartet and an Arab contact group charged with promoting a peace plan to normalise ties with Israel in return for Israeli pullout from all occupied Arab land.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said after Arab ministers met in Cairo Friday that he had been "reluctant" to join the conference but agreed to go so as not to break Arab consensus.
The ministers sent an urgent letter to the United States asking it to "explicitly" include on the agenda the issue of the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in 1967.
The US State Department said all parties to the meeting could raise their "national interests" without actually confirming whether the Golan Heights would officially be on the agenda.
According to the diplomat, the United States has verbally agreed to include in the agenda both the Golan and the Shebaa Farms, held by Israel and claimed by Lebanon. But Arab states have asked for the promise to be put in writing.
He said a letter from Bush to Olmert and Abbas in which the US president reaffirms the need for the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel will be distributed to the conferees in Annapolis.
The document, which is perceived as a "letter of guarantees," states that the peace process must be based on UN resolutions, the "roadmap" drawn up by the Quartet, and the Arab peace plan.
Another follow-up step will be the donors conference for the Palestinians which will be hosted by France, said the diplomat, adding that the conference is expected to be held on December 17.
The diplomat said that Saudi Arabia, which has no relations with Israel, has told the United States that it does not want the Annapolis conference to lead to meetings with the Israelis.
"The Saudis told Washington that they do not want to meet anyone from the Israeli delegation, either by chance or by prior arrangement. Hence it was decided that ... delegations would enter into the meeting room from different doors," he said.
He said many Arab countries are not optimistic that the conference will yield breakthroughs on the Israeli-Palestinian track, "but they are going in order to underline their desire to take part in any attempts to achieve peace."
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