By Haaretz Staff and the Associated Press
A spokesman for the Iranian presidency on Sunday denied that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had expressed support for the 2002 Arab peace initiative during talks with Saudi officials, as reported by Saudi Arabia's official news agency.
"During the summit, no discussions were held in this regard," Spokesman Ehsan Jahandideh told IRNA, the Iranian news agency.
Under the Saudi peace plan, adopted at an Arab League summit in Beirut in March 2002, Arab states would normalize relations with Israel in exchange for its withdrawal from territory captured in the 1967 Six-Day War.
Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency, in a report carrying statements by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his return to Iran late Saturday following talks with King Abdullah in Saudi Arabia, did not mention the initiative.
The Saudi Press Agency reported early Sunday that Ahmadinejad had said during talks that he was in favor of the plan. The report did not say how the agency had learned of this.
IRNA, the Iranian news agency, reported that Ahmadinejad told journalists talks had dealt with the Palestinians situation and developments in Iraq.
"We have good relations with Saudi Arabia and it was necessary to discuss current developments in world of Islam with officials of the country," IRNA quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.
Israel is expecting the Arab League to adopt an improved version of the Saudi peace plan at a summit meeting called for the end of this month in Riyadh, senior government sources told Haaretz last week.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said last week that Israel objects to the initiative's section on the Palestinian refugees, which was not part of the initial Saudi draft, but was added at the 2002 Arab League summit.
1 comment:
Interesting - but then what is there to expect from Iran's President? Still, perhaps there's consollation in the fact that they merely said it wasn't discussed rather than trying to trash it.
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