3 Nations Reject Palestinians’ Efforts to Sever All Relations With Israel

Egypt, Jordan and Turkey on Friday successfully rebuffed attempts by other Muslim nations, including Iran, to demand a unilateral severing of relations with Israel over its clashes with the Palestinians.

Preparing for a three-day Islamic gathering beginning Sunday, Palestinian delegates at a ministerial meeting proposed that the summit call on all participants with ties to Israel to sever them. The proposal failed, and instead a draft statement will be submitted for discussion at the summit which “requests” that Islamic countries cut ties with the Jewish state.

Discussions of the draft statement extended into Friday evening because of the heated dispute over its wording.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa said the draft expressed the participants’ “intense outrage at what is happening to the Palestinian people in occupied Palestinian areas.”

The draft statement lashed out at what it called Israel’s “onslaught,” saying “this wanton, dastardly and premeditated Israeli aggression . . . is a blatant violation of the Palestinian people and their human rights.”

The release of the draft followed a meeting between Moussa and Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi. Iran was one of the main supporters of the Palestinian proposal.

Most of the delegates--including those from Mauritania, a member of the Arab League that just opened diplomatic relations with Israel in January--had welcomed the Palestinian suggestion, said Mohammed Khonsari, an advisor to Kharrazi.

“The whole atmosphere of the summit seems to be anti-Israeli,” Khonsari said.

However, Egypt and Jordan, the only Arab states with peace accords with the Jewish state, as well as Turkey, which has military agreements with Israel, rejected the Palestinian demand, according to diplomats attending the meeting.

The three countries said they were ready to provide all kinds of support for the Palestinians but argued that cutting relations with Israel would not serve the Palestinian cause, the diplomats said. They said the countries wanted to give diplomatic efforts a chance to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that erupted Sept. 28. Egypt and Jordan took a similar conciliatory position at an Arab summit last month.

The focus of the summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference is the latest Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed, which has killed nearly 200 people, most of them Palestinian. Angry protests have taken place in most Arab and Muslim countries, blaming Israel for the violence.

Sunday, the first day of the summit, will be devoted to discussions of the struggle of Palestinians, the ministers announced at the end of their two-day meeting.

A day after Qatar closed an Israeli trade mission in response to pressure from delegates, Saudi officials said Friday that Crown Prince Abdullah will lead the Saudi delegation to the summit. The kingdom had threatened to boycott the gathering over Qatar’s low-level relations with Israel.

Iranian officials at the ministerial meeting said they expected Qatar to keep the Israeli office closed throughout its three-year chairmanship of the Islamic Conference.

On the sidelines of Friday’s session, Kharrazi met with his Iraqi counterpart, Mohammed Said Sahaf, to discuss how their governments could further boost ties. Relations between the two countries, who were at war from 1980-1988, have recently improved.