Hamas minister backs Middle East peace conference
Source: Reuters
(Recasts, adds Israeli comment) By Alaa Shahine CAIRO, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Arab foreign ministers, including the Palestinian minister of Islamist Hamas, called on Sunday for a new international Middle East peace conference to be attended by major U.N. powers, Arabs and Israelis. The Arab League ministers, meeting in emergency session in Egypt, also pledged to break Western financial sanctions imposed on the Palestinian Authority after Hamas won January elections, but gave scant details on how that would be achieved. Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar, whose Hamas organisation heads the Palestinian government and calls for the destruction of Israel, declined to say whether the group would attend the proposed peace conference. "Will this conference be held or not? What's the agenda of the conference? We don't know. I leave this matter to the future," he told reporters after the Arab meeting, called after Wednesday's killing of 19 Palestinian civilians by Israeli fire in Gaza. The ministers, who convened at the Cairo-based Arab League, said in a communique that permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, Israel and Arab parties would be invited to attend the peace conference to resolve the Arab-Israeli dispute based on the principle of land for peace. It would be aimed at "reaching a just and comprehensive solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict on all tracks according to the relevant international resolutions and the principle of land for peace," said the communique, adopted unanimously. In Israel, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev noted that such a conference represented a stage in a long-stalled "road map" to Middle East peace, adding: "The international conference is at the second phase of the road map and we are hoping that the peace process will move forward and will get to that stage sooner rather later." CRIPPLING SANCTIONS The Arab ministers said they would refuse to abide by crippling sanctions imposed by the United States and Europe after Hamas ousted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party in the elections. "There will be no compliance with any restriction imposed ... The Arab banks have to transfer money (to the Palestinians)," Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa told a news conference. The decision came as Hamas and Fatah opened talks on allocating cabinet seats in a unity government that Palestinians hope will lead to the easing of the Western sanctions that have increased hardship in the occupied West Bank and in Gaza. The Arab ministers said they would agree on mechanisms to bypass the embargo. One Arab diplomat said the League was able earlier this year to successfully transfer $100 million to the Palestinian Authority, although he did not say how. Zahar said delivering financial aid through banks would take time. "We will return to the normal ways of transferring money ... It needs some time but the decision itself is very important," he told reporters. The conference was called after Wednesday's Israeli shelling, which the Israeli army says was aimed at preventing rocket attacks on Israel. It said the deaths were caused by a technical malfunction. Israel launched a major offensive in Gaza in June after Palestinian gunmen captured an Israeli soldier and killed two others in a cross-border raid. The military assault has killed more than 370 Palestinians, around half of them civilians. Three Israeli soldiers have been killed. Zahar told ministers that Beit Hanoun, battered by the Israeli offensive, needed $50 million to be rebuilt. Moussa said Kuwait had pledged $30 million. (Additional reporting by Jonathan Wright)
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