Khaddam: Syria opposes Arab summit, calls for economic boycott of Israel
Syria, Politics, 7/14/1998

Syrian Vice-President Abdul Halim Khaddam has announced that Damascus opposes the convening of a new Arab summit as long as resolutions of the recent plenary Cairo Arab summit of 1996 are not implemented.

In a statement to the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi daily, Khaddam said: "The Cairo plenary summit adopted secret decisions obligating all Arab countries to freeze contacts and all forms of normalization with Israel, should Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proceed with his expansionist policies, building settlements and violating the peace process."

The Syrian vice-president added that Syria "opposes convening any new Arab summit as far as decisions of the Cairo plenary summit await implementation," in remarks to the decision adopted by the said summit to freeze normalization with Israel if the peace process still deadlocked. Khaddam said, "Syria does not ask for abrogating agreements and treaties signed by certain Arab sides with the Hebrew state." He elaborated, "What we ask for is just to freeze all forms of normalization and to revive the weapons of Arab economic boycott of Israel."

He added that the Arab leaders who met in the recent Cairo summit addressed a "message to Netanyahu warning against the grave consequences that might be inflected from the policies he announced in his electoral program on the grounds of which he assumed power."

Khaddam stressed that Syria was "surprised" over the convening of the recent tripartite summit in Cairo, which comprised King Hussein of Jordan, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, and President Muhammad Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.

"No prior coordination between Cairo and Damascus was made concerning the said tripartite summit," Khaddam said.

Previous Stories:
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