King Abdullah: Negotiations between Syria and Israel will be resumed soon

King Abdullah II of Jordan told the French daily Le Figaro issued on Monday that negotiations between Syria and Israel will be resumed very soon.

Monte Carlo Radio said that King Abdullah stressed during the interview that "discussions and impressions in the two sides (the Syrians and the Israelis) are optimistic."

The Jordanian king said he did not organize any meeting between Israel and Syria. He continued, "I had only conveyed verbal messages from President Hafez al-Assad to the US and to the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak."

The Jordanian king added that the role he plays concerning the Syrian-Israeli track is to "work for purifying the atmospheres so as the two sides to sit on the dialogue table and start direct negotiations."

Replying to a question on the new generations of Arab officials from Bahrain, Jordan, Rabat, through Damascus, a generation which has started to take responsibilities in various degrees, and the possibility of comparing this generation with their fathers, the Jordanian king stressed that this new generation which had its education in the West seizes the two sides of the chains in the Eastern and Western cultures.

He added that the West has to help this generation exactly as the US helped Europe after the World War II, because this very Arab generation is a symbol of the hope of the people in proceeding towards liberty and democracy.