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March 5, 2007

Lebanonwire

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Arab League concludes meeting with resolutions

CAIRO - The Arab League (AL) foreign ministers meeting Sunday concluded here with adoption of resolutions on a string of regional issues, including Iraq, Lebanon, Sudan and Palestinians.

Tunisian Foreign Minister Abdelwaheb Abdallah, who is also chairman of the meeting, read out the resolutions at a join press conference with AL Secretary General Amr Moussa.

According to the resolutions, the Arab foreign ministers stressed the necessity of implementing the Mecca agreement, which was signed between two Palestinian mainstream movements Hamas and Fatah in February in the Saudi holy city, calling for lift of the siege on the Palestinians and setting up a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

The ministers reiterated the demand of stopping Israeli construction of the separation wall while condemning the Israeli excavation near the holy al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the third holiest site for Muslims.

The Arab states also called for forming a mechanism to put into effect the Middle East resolution passed by the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review meetings in 1995 to render the Mideast free from weapons of mass destruction.

The Middle East resolution called on all states in the Middle East to join the NPT and put their nuclear facilities under the inspection.

In the resolution on Iraq, the AL member states showed respect to the independence and unity of the war-torn country, renewing their support to the Iraqi government in the fight against insurgency and efforts to achieve national reconciliation.

On Sudan, the Arab ministers agreed to enhancing Arab role in the African Union peacekeeping mission in Sudan's restive region of Darfur, urging the international community to exert efforts to avoid further complications to the implementation of the Abuja peace accord signed in May 2006.

On Lebanon, the ministers pressed for reaching a peaceful solution to end the Lebanese crisis, calling on all Lebanese to remain united and seek the way of dialogue.

The meeting also outlined the agenda of the upcoming AL summit slated for late March in Saudi capital of Riyadh to focus on the situations in Iraq, the Palestinian territories as well as the Iranian and Israeli nuclear files, according to the statement readout by Tunisian foreign minister.

The statement said that the Arab relationship with international and regional powers, such as China, the U.S. and other main powers in the world, would also be discussed at the summit. -Agencies

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