Riyadh – Saudi Foreign Minister said on Thursday that bringing Israelis and Palestinians back to negotiating table should be the main focus of Middle East peace efforts.
Saudi FM Prince Faisal bin Farhan said, “I believe that the focus now needs to be on getting the Palestinians and the Israelis back to the negotiating table. In the end, the only thing that can deliver lasting peace and lasting stability is an agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis”.
He said durong a virtual appearance at a US think tank.
On August 21, Saudi Arabia’s former intelligence chief Prince Turki bin Faisal Al-Saud said that, “Saudi Arabia’s price for normalising relations with Israel is the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital”.
The 2002 Arab Peace Initiative was proposed by the late Saudi King Abdullah Al-Saud to the state of Israel.
According to the API-2002, Arab countries will normalize ties with Israel, however Israel should withdraw its forces and settlements from all territories including the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, which were captured in the 1967 Middle East war. Moreover, East Jerusalem should be Palestine’s capital.
