EU-Arab Agreement To Create A Tripartite Group To Promote Mideast Peace Process

(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) BRUSSELS, Feb 13 (KUNA) -- The European Union, the Arab League and Saudi Arabia Monday agreed to establish a tripartite group to promote Middle East peace efforts.
'We agreed to establish a trilateral working group to develop proposals for the comprehensive regional approach by identifying what contributions the participants, governments and international organizations could make to a comprehensive peace, if and when a Palestinian-Israel final peace agreement could be reached,' EU High Representative Josep Borrell told a press conference after a meeting with Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, and Ahmad Abul-Gheit, Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, in Brussels today.
'With this endeavor we want to demonstrate that we need peace in the Middle East,' said the EU foreign policy chief.
Borrell described today's meeting as 'very good and productive.'
'We discussed in detail the Middle East Peace process or unfortunately the absence of the peace process. At the moment there is no such a thing and we have been discussing how we can work together to revive the peace efforts,' he said.
Borrell noted that they met in this tripartite format last September during the UN General Assembly in New York.
'We are very much worried about the developments in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories,' he stressed.
Noting the continued violence in the region, expansion of Israeli settlements and demolition of Palestinian homes, he said, 'the situation is constantly deteriorating.'
'Only yesterday, the Israeli government announced the legalization of the law of nine settlement outputs,' he said adding, 'I condemn this decision.'
On his part, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud told the joint press conference 'our initiative here is to try and revive the efforts towards peace initiative and toward achieving the goals of the Arab peace proposal that is critically important to give Palestinians hope.'
He said the tripartite meeting comes at a 'very important moment given the dangerous developments that we are seeing in Palestine especially the announcement by Israel on the annexation of nine settlements, a blatantly illegal act which will further inflame tensions.'
It is important that we continue to find a path to peace, said the Saudi foreign minister and thanked the EU for its strong commitment to peace in the Middle East.
On his part, Arab League chief Ahmed Abul-Gheit, said reviving the peace process is focused on how to maintain and revive an Arab peace initiative based on the two-state solution as the prospect of the peace initiative.
He warned that in the absence of that peace effort 'sadly the situation in the Middle East threatens to worsen by the day.'
Today's Brussels meeting took observers by surprise, as it was not announced earlier. (end)
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