Arabs call for int’l stance against Israeli annexation

AMMAN

Nine Arab countries on Tuesday called for an effective international stance against an Israeli plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank.

The foreign ministers of Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Morocco, Tunisia, Oman and Kuwait held a virtual meeting on Tuesday.

A statement issued following the meeting called on the international community to take “clear and effective measures to prevent the implementation of the Israeli annexation plan to safeguard international law and peace”.

It also underlined the need to return to serious and effective talks for solving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on the basis of the two-state solution.

The Arab ministers reiterated their support to the 2000 Arab Peace Initiative, which offers Israel full diplomatic recognition from the Arab states in return for an Israeli withdrawal from Arab land occupied in 1967 and the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to start annexing all settlement blocs and the Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank as of July 1.

The move, however, appears to have come to a halt in light of widespread international rejection of the plan along with differences with the US administration on its application.

International law views both the West Bank and East Jerusalem as "occupied territories" and considers all Jewish settlement-building activity there as illegal.

*Ahmed Asmar contributed to this report from Ankara