On al- Assad's visit to Saudi Arabia
Syria-Saudi Arabia, Politics, 3/5/2002

The Kuwaiti daily al-Anbaa issued on Monday stressed the importance of the visit to be carried out by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to Saudi Arabia where he will be meeting with the Saudi King Fahd and with the crown prince Abdullah, noting that the Saudi crown prince will give President al-Assad full explanation about his initiative which stresses the need of Israel's withdrawal and the establishment of the Palestinian state, besides that the withdrawal will cover the Golan Heights.

In an analysis the paper added, for his part, President al-Assad will brief the Saudi crown prince with the points Syria wants to clarify and needed to be confirmed.

Well-informed diplomatic sources said that Syria does not oppose the Saudi initiative because it fully realizes the extent of the care the Saudi crown prince has to maintain Arab rights and commitment to it and that the Saudi initiative complies with the Syrian and the Arab position in clinging to peace as a strategic choice for the Arabs without violating the unwavering Arab rights..

The sources added that Syria wants before the initiative will be debated at the Beirut's summit to be an Arab peace project on several main points, first: not to repeat what had happened after Madrid conference as the agreement was on not to have a separate move and the attempt to reach separate settlements with Israel and then Oslo agreements between the Palestinians and the Israelis and the signing of the peace agreement between Jordan and Israel. A mater which had weakened the Arab position in general and helped Israel to escape and non- abiding by what had been agreed upon in Madrid.

The paper said that the problem of the return back of the refugees constitutes for Syria, which hosts almost 500,000 Palestinian refugees, a basic issue, noting that regarding the normalization of relations with Israel should be a result of peace rather than one of its conditions from the Syrian view point.

The paper explained that the Saudi leadership will brief al-Assad on the results of the contacts it held with the American administration, the last of which the meeting with William Burns with whom talks concentrated on the peace process.

Previous Stories:
  Al-Assad visits Saudi Arabia tomorrow   (3/4/2002)
  Al-Shara discuss with al-Faisal, Hammoud Palestinian developments, the Arab summit   (3/2/2002)
  Al-Assad crown prince Abdullah discuss ME developments on telephone   (1/7/2002)

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