Riyadh Summit Resolutions, 29 March 2007

The Palestine Question and the Arab-Israeli Conflict and its Developments. Reactivating the Arab Peace Initiative

The [Arab] League Council at the Summit Level,

Having studied the Secretary General's Report on Joint Arab Action,

and the Final Report of the Follow-up Committee for the Implementation of Resolutions and Commitments;

Bearing in mind resolution number 221 of the Beirut Summit of 28 March 2002 that launched the Arab Peace Initiative;

Reaffirming the Arab commitment to a just and comprehensive peace as a strategic option, and that the peace process is an indivisible comprehensive process, that just and comprehensive peace in the region cannot be achieved except by a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian and Arab occupied territories, including the occupied Arab Syrian Golan to the 4 June 1967 line, and from the territories of Southern Lebanon that are still occupied, by the achievement of a just and agreed solution to the Palestinian refugee problem in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194 of 1948, and the rejection of all forms of resettlement,

and confirming the [need to] establish a sovereign  independent Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem;

and after having reviewed the Arab and International efforts that have been invested to revive the peace process;

Has resolved to:

1.    Reiterate the commitment of all the Arab States to the Peace Initiative as decided upon by the Beirut Summit in the year 2002 in all its components and based on the resolutions of international legitimacy and its principles, to put an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict and to establish comprehensive and just peace, which would obtain security for all the states of the region and would enable the Palestinian people to establish their independent state with its capital in East Jerusalem.

2.    Affirm once again the invitation to the government of Israel and to all the Israelis to accept the Arab Peace Initiative and to seize the auspicious opportunity to resume serious and direct negotiations on all tracks.

SOURCE: al-Sharq al-Awsat, 31 March 2007. Translated from the Arabic by Asher Susser.