AFP
US must be honest broker in Middle East: Arab League leader
Date: Wed Nov 10
MADRID (AFP) - Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa stressed the need to uphold the principle of land for peace for a Mideast peace settlement and urged Washington to act as "honest broker" to move the stalled process forward.
With the re-election of US President George W. Bush (news - web sites), Mussa expressed the hope that the US leader would now honour an existing commitment to establishing a sovereign Palestinian state by the end of 2005.
"We are full of hope that this would be the flagship of the American administration to be implemented not later that the end of next year as promised," Mussa said.
"I would urge that a balanced policy be adopted by the (US) administration in building up peace between the two parties (Israel and the Palestinians).
"That is what we need from the new American administration. There is no honest broker now. We need an honest broker," Mussa urged.
"There is a growing awareness in the Arab world that living on a war footing, on a confrontation footing, has to come to an end," Mussa said.
He urged the implementation of "the principle of land for peace, the principle of inadmissibility of acquisition of territories by war or force."
With the Palestinians on the verge of a new era as Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) nears death, Mussa said on a visit to Madrid that the stricken father of Palestinian dreams of nationhood had not been an obstacle to peace.
"President Arafat was never an obstacle to peace. He was sometimes a pretext not to move towards peace.
"But he himself knew and understood the price the Palestinians have to pay to get peace and statehood," Mussa said, noting that the 1991 peace conference which Madrid hosted laid down the underlying "principle -- that is, land for peace."
"Arafat led the Palestinians' work to achieve their statehood," Mussa told reporters.
"People come and go, leaders come and go, human beings live and die but the cause, the rights, the people never die," he told a forum hosted by Wall Street Journal Europe.
SOURCE
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