ISLAMABAD: Saudi Arabia on Wednesday said it was committed to peace between Israel and Palestine on the basis of the Arab Peace Initiative, a proposal that was first endorsed by the Arab League in 2002 and required the Jewish state to withdraw to pre-June 1967 borders.
Addressing a news conference in Berlin, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said the Kingdom considered “Israel’s unilateral policies of annexation and building settlements as illegitimate and detrimental to the two-state solution.”
The comment was made just a few days after Israel and the United Arab Emirates announced a normalization process under a US-brokered peace deal.
The Saudi foreign minister emphasized the necessity of implementing international agreements to help achieve peace for the people of Palestine, describing it as the precondition to normal diplomatic dealings with Israel.
“Once that is achieved all things are possible,” Prince Farhan said.
United States President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner claimed on Monday it would be in Saudi Arabia's interest to develop formal ties with Israel. He insisted that the diplomatic opening between the two countries would also benefit the people of Palestine.
It may be recalled that the Arab Peace Initiative was dismissed by former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon shortly after its announcement.
While some leaders of the Jewish state claimed that they were open to the conflict resolution mechanism suggested in the peace proposal, their country never stopped building settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
