Riyadh – Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan on Wednesday condemned Israel’s latest annexation plans to occupy parts of West Bank, and called on the international community to take strict stance against it.
Prince Faisal conducted an emergency meeting for the foreign ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to voice the objections against Israel’s plans to annex West Bank and the Jordan Valley.
The plan was outlined in a US peace plan which has been widely criticized and rejected by the Palestinians.
Reyad al-Maliki, the foreign minister of Palestine, said in the meeting that the Israeli settlements aim to change the demographics, and said that they will not back-off from the Arab Peace Initiative.
Yousef al-Othaimeen, the secretary-general of OIC, said that Israel’s occupation plans violate international law and relevant UN resolutions. He also reiterated that OIC supports the Palestinian leadership and his decisions against illegal Israeli move.
“Any illegal change to the Palestinian lands threatens the two-state solution”, al-Othaimeen said.
OIC fully supports the Palestinian people’s right of establishing a sovereign state based on the 1967 borders with east-Jerusalem as its capital, and late King of Saudi Arabia Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud proposed Arab Peace Initiative to reconcile disputes between Palestine and Israel. However, the Israeli government under Ariel Sharon rejected the initiative as “non-starter”. On the other-side, Iran-backed terrorist group Hamas also rejected the initiative adding further fuel to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
