 Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, is to hold talks with his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah in Riyadh as part of efforts to improve relations between the countries. The leaders will hold talks in the Saudi capital on Wednesday, in the run-up to an Arab League summit expected to take part at the end of the month. "Bilateral relations ... and ways of strengthening them in various fields in addition to regional and international issues of common concern" will be discussed, the Saudi state news agency SPA reported. The visit by Assad marks a relaxing of tensions between the Syrian and the Saudi government after years of differences over Damascus' links to Iran and Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shia organisation. Relations had been further damaged in the wake of the 2005 assassination of Rafiq al-Hariri, a former Lebanese prime minister who had close ties to the Saudi government. Interim reports from a UN investigation into al-Hariri's killing alleged that Syrian officials had a hand in the plot, claims consistently denied by Damascus. With the al-Hariri case now under the auspices of a special tribunal in The Hague, Saudi Arabia is looking to unite regional powers before the Arab League summit in Doha, the Qatari capital, set to take place on March 30. Palestinian dialogue In a parallel development, Egypt, with the support of Saudi Arabia, is brokering talks in Cairo between the rival Palestinian groups, Hamas and Fatah. Fatah is led by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president. Israel lists Hamas as a "terrorist organisation" and has so far only held talks with Fatah. The meeting in the Egyptian capital is aimed forming a national unity government for the Palestinian that can eventually engage in peace negotiations with Israel. An Arab League summit in Kuwait in January ended left Arab countries split over Israel's 22-day assault on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, with Syria and Qatar adopting a more strident tone than Egypt and Saudi Arabia. More than 1,300 Palestinians were killed during the war, which Israel said was aimed at preventing rocket fire from Palestinian fighters based in the coastal strip. Peace initiative The Saudis have since tried to get all 22 Arab states to support a fresh push for the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative for Israel and the Palestinians. The plan offers Israel recognition from all Arab states in return for the establishment of a Palestinian state based on borders before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and the principle of right of return for Palestinian refugees. The Saudis have repeatedly called on Washington and Israel to support the plan, stressing that it will not be indefinitely on offer. "Israel must realise that the choice between peace and war will not be available all the time, and that the Arab initiative on the table today will not be on the table forever," King Abdullah said at the Kuwait summit. http://english.aljazeera.net
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Tuesday, 2012-05-22, 3:45 PM
