Pakistan(National Times)- His statement came during a joint press conference in Amman with counterparts from Jordan, Egypt and Bahrain, after they met as part of an Arab contact group that was going to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah.\u201cIsrael\u2019s refusal of the committee\u2019s visit to the West Bank embodies and confirms its extremism and refusal of any serious attempts for (a) peaceful pathway .. It strengthens our will to double our diplomatic efforts within the international community to face this arrogance,\u201d the Saudi minister said. On Saturday, Israel said it would not allow a planned meeting on Sunday that would have included ministers from Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, Palestinian Authority officials said. Bin Farhan\u2019s visit to the West Bank would have marked the first such visit by a top Saudi official in recent memory. An Israeli official said the ministers intended to take part in a \u201cprovocative meeting\u201d to discuss promoting the establishment of a Palestinian state. Jordan\u2019s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said blocking the trip was another example of how Israel was \u201ckilling any chance of a just and comprehensive\u201d Arab-Israeli settlement. An international conference, co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, is due to be held in New York on June 17-20 to discuss the issue of Palestinian statehood. Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said the conference would cover security arrangements after a ceasefire in Gaza and reconstruction plans to ensure Palestinians would remain on their land and foil any Israeli plans to evict them. Commenting on blocking the visit, Israeli Arab lawmaker Ayman Odeh said the Arab foreign ministers\u2019 delegation aimed to end the Gaza war, enhance the Palestinian Authority\u2019s role, and support a Saudi-French U.N. initiative to set up a roadmap for a Palestinian stateOdeh told Saudi state-owned Al Arabiya Television that the Saudi-French initiative could lead to broader international recognition of a Palestinian state, a move he said contradicts Israeli government policy. According to Odeh, the Israeli government seeks to undermine the Palestinian Authority because it views it as the \u201cnucleus of the Palestinian state.\u201d He said Israel blocked the Arab foreign ministers\u2019 visit because it could have helped strengthen the Palestinian Authority. Israel has come under increasing pressure from the United Nations and European countries that favour a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, under which an independent Palestinian state would exist alongside Israel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pakistan(National Times)- His statement came during a joint press conference in Amman with counterparts from Jordan, Egypt and Bahrain, after they met as part of an Arab contact group that was going to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah.\u201cIsrael\u2019s refusal of the committee\u2019s visit to the West Bank embodies and confirms its extremism and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105472,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n