24 June 2009…
Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit welcomed the outcomes of the Arab Ministerial Meeting, held on June 24th, at the League of Arab States, and said “the outcomes of the meeting fully concur with the Egyptian vision regarding the overall status of the peace achievement efforts”. Aboul Gheit praised “the spirit of rationality and openness that overwhelmed the Arab meeting, and what has been reached concerning the determinants of the situation towards the developments of the efforts to achieve Arab-Israeli peace and adherence to the Arab constants.
In his statements following the meeting, Aboul Gheit stated “the discussion was constructive and beneficial, and revealed great common factors in the vision of the Arab states regarding the situation, especially in their positive assessment of the US role under Obama’s Administration and what the US President proposed in this regard.. and the demarches he conducted till the time being indicate his readiness to work seriously and rapidly on ending the conflict, which we welcome and appreciate”.
Responding to a question, Foreign Minister Aboul Gheit stated “the way ahead of the Arab side is getting clearer .. and now the US is expected to present its vision for the approach that could be adopted to reach a final settlement .. which is good and we hope that it results in a rapid resumption of negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis after the Israelis’ commitment to halt its settlement activity”.
Aboul Gheit stated that the document issued today would be a work document for the Arab side during its meeting with the International Quartet in Trieste, Italy, on Friday, June 26th, to discuss the situation in the Middle East.
Aboul Gheit outlined that “the meeting’s advocacy to the Egyptian efforts to achieve Palestinian reconciliation is good .. but what we are really looking forward and aspiring to is an internal Palestinian perception of the peril of the situation, hard and sincere work to respond to the Egyptian efforts, and ending the division by July 7th to be able to restore the minimum level of Palestinian unity”.