The 14th Arab summit concluded in Beirut Thursday with an emphasis on Arabs' strategic option for peace, a reaffirmation against any military strikes on Iraq and a promise to speed up Arab economic integration.
The Beirut Declaration, adopted unanimously at the just-ended summit, calls on Israel to abide by relevant UN resolutions to achieve a just, durable and comprehensive peace in the Middle East.
The document urges the Jewish state to review its policy, and withdraw its troops from all occupied Arab lands, including Syria's Golan Heights, the Shebaa farms in southern Lebanon and Palestinian lands.
It also asks Israel to implement UN Resolution 194 to guarantee the right of return of the Palestinian refugees and to recognize an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.
The Arab leaders also call for a quick ending of Arab-Israeli conflicts, the reaching of peace deals to ensure security for all peoples in the region and full normalization of Arab ties with Israel on the basis of a comprehensive peace.
The declaration says that Arabs oppose any form of settlement of the Palestinian refugees on their current location, apparently reaffirming Arab support for the right of return of the Palestinian refugees.
The document also appeals to Israel and the world community to accept and support a unified Arab peace plan, which is based on a Saudi peace initiative.
The Saudi initiative, first raised by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah Ibn Abdul-Aziz during an interview with the New York Times in February, called for normalization of Arab relations with Israel in exchange for the latter's withdrawal from all Arab lands it occupied in 1967 Middle East war.
On the Iraq-Kuwait issue, the final document welcomes a new Iraqi stand, as it expressed during the summit, to respect Kuwait's independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty and to prevent a recurrence of the 1990 Gulf crisis, which was triggered by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
It also calls on Iraq and Kuwait to cooperate and to seek quicker solutions to pending issues between the two countries, such as prisoners of war captured during the Gulf crisis and the return of properties Iraq captured from the Gulf emirate.
Regarding the Iraq-UN talks, the Arab summiteers welcome the resumption of the talks, while calling on Iraq to comply with relevant UN resolutions on the country.
The declaration also calls for the lifting of the decade-old international sanctions to end the sufferings of the Iraqi people.
Iraq has been under UN sanctions since 1990 for its invasion of the neighboring Kuwait.
Meanwhile, the document rejects any threat of military strikes against any Arab country, particularly Iraq.
Recently, Washington has repeatedly threatened to strike Iraq due to its refusal to allow the return of UN inspectors to check alleged weapons of mass destruction in the country.
The communique denounces international terrorism but lashes out at Israel's "state terrorism" under the excuse of anti-terrorism campaigns, while calling for identifying legal resistance to occupation from terrorism.
The summit agrees to speed up the establishment of the pan-Arab free trade zone, launched at the 1996 Cairo Arab summit, to meet the challenges of economic globalization.
The Arab leaders also agree to hold their annual summit in Manama, capital of Bahrain, next year.
(Xinhua News Agency March 28, 2002)
