Arabs Return From Talks Uneasy and Skeptical

CAIRO, Egypt — This week’s Middle East conference in Annapolis, Md., has highlighted Arab unease over the ability and will of a weak American president to deliver peace and fears that Israel has scored a p.r. coup while refusing to concede on such core issues as the status of Palestinian Arab refugees and the fate of Jerusalem.Arab nations, most notably Syria and Saudi Arabia, had been reluctant to attend the American-sponsored talks, which set the framework for future Israeli-Palestinian Arab negotiations. Now, with their prestige on the line, Arab officials are returning to their capitals with two tasks: convincing their populations that the summit was a crucial step toward a Palestinian Arab state and keeping pressure on America and Israel to deliver progress.It is a politically risky situation marked by skepticism and mistrust as well as occasional resolve. Arabs were encouraged that the Israeli-Palestinian Arab conflict was, at least temporarily, moved to center stage. But turmoil in Lebanon, war in Iraq, and a rising Iran have complicated Middle East politics beyond the nuances of what unfolds between Prime Minister Olmert and the moderate Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas. Such instabilities, however, are often inextricably linked to a lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace.Arab capitals worry that if Mr. Abbas is perceived to have gained little from Annapolis, it will strengthen Iranian-backed militant groups, such as Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon. One of the major reasons Sunni Arab countries, such as Saudi Arabia, agreed to participate in the summit was to counter Iran’s political involvement across the region, including its alliance with Syria and influence in Iraq.“Stagnation in the peace process has increased the appeal for extremist ideologies. Feelings of despair and frustration have reached a dangerously high level,” the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, said. “It is time to bring this conflict to an end and to enable the people of the region to divert their energies from war and destruction to peace and development.”State-controlled Iranian press seized on the Annapolis conference to assert that neither an Israeli-Palestinian Arab peace nor a wider Middle East calm were possible without the blessing of Tehran, which Washington did not invite to the summit.

Arabs Return From Talks Uneasy and Skeptical

Arabs Return From Talks Uneasy and Skeptical

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