Invitations to a Failed Summit?

US to Invite Syria, Arabs to Summit

RAMALLAH, West Bank, 23 September 2007 — US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has told Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that Washington plans to invite six Arab states including Syria to a Middle East peace conference, Abbas’ aides said.

Abbas’ senior aide Nimer Hammad said yesterday Washington would like Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, plus the Palestinian Authority to attend the US-sponsored conference, expected to be held in November.

Rice held talks with Abbas during her sixth visit to the region last week as part of efforts to prod Israel and the Palestinians closer to an agreement ahead of the conference.

“Rice told President Abbas in their meeting on Thursday that the US plans to invite the Arab states delegated by the Arab League to follow up the Arab peace initiative. These...states of course include Syria and Lebanon,” Hammad told Reuters.

Rice did not say who would be invited to the conference, expected to be held in the Washington area, during her visit. Among the six Arab states, only Jordan and Egypt have full diplomatic relations with Israel. The rest link formal ties with the Jewish state to an Israeli withdrawal from Arab land it occupied in 1967. Relations between Israel and Syria are particularly tense after reports that the Jewish state conducted airstrikes in Syria this month.

Syria has said it was ready to take part in the conference which US President George W. Bush called for in July to try to revive Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. US-Syrian relations have plummeted in recent years amid policy differences over Iraq, Lebanon and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Doubts have risen recently over the conference amid Israeli-Palestinian differences over the outcome of the meeting, with Saudi Arabia saying it may not attend unless it addressed all issues and a timetable for peace was agreed in advance.

The Palestinians have said it would be difficult for Abbas to attend a conference that other Arab countries boycott. “We hope enough progress could be made before the conference in order to encourage Arab states to attend,” a senior Abbas aide said.

Abbas’ aides said the Palestinian leader was coming under pressure from his own Fatah group and from some Arab states to boycott the conference if he failed to get written guarantees on key conditions ahead of the meeting.

Those conditions include agreement on a Palestinian state in the West Bank, including Arab East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, with a clear implementation timeline. Rice told a news conference last week she had assured Abbas the conference should put the Palestinians firmly on the path to establishing their own state. She said she was optimistic Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Abbas could agree a joint document on key final status issues such as borders, the fate of Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees and Jewish settlements. But she said she did not think the document would include a timetable for Palestinian statehood.

In another development, chanting “Yes to Palestinian unity,” some 200 Palestinian women marched in Ramallah yesterday to urge President Abbas to release Hamas supporters from West Bank jails.

Scuffles broke out when the women — wearing veils and shouting “God is great” — tried to push past police, who tried to stop the march in the West Bank hub of Ramallah, where Abbas’ Fatah faction is dominant. Police detained one woman after she sprayed gas at a policeman but no serious violence erupted.

“It is Ramadan and our brothers and fathers are in Abbas’ jails,” said a woman who gave her name only as Rula. “We are one Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank...Abbas is helping the Israelis by jailing his own people.”