Oman's foreign minister meets with Barak

Oman's minister of state for foreign affairs Youssef Bin Alwai Bin Abdullah has revealed that he had met with the Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak in New York on the sideline of the Millennium summit.

In a statement to Oman's daily " Oman " on Tuesday, Bin Alawi added he met with Barak and discussed with him the Middle East peace process.

This meeting, which is the first since 1995 between Oman's foreign minister and Israel's prime minister comes at a time when all Arab states stress they have frozen all contacts with Israel with the absence of any progress in the peace process in the Middle East.

Worthy mentioning that Oman is the only Arab state which opened a trade bureau in Israel in 1996, but it had summoned the director of this bureau in 1997 and linked the return back of its trade bureau's to Israel to attaining a progress in the peace negotiations in the Middle East.

Meantime, He clarified in press declarations yesterday that he assured to Barak during their meeting that Jerusalem is an Arab land and could not remain under the Israeli sovereignty to guarantee security and stability in the area, adding that neither Barak nor who ever will follow him should expect any Israeli sovereignty on the holy places in Jerusalem.

On the other hand, Bin Alawi said that Golan height is Syrian and the Arab stance asks Israel to withdraw from the Syrian lands till borders of the 4th of June 1967 and there is no justification for the Israeli domination over it.