JERUSALEM: The umbrella Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has decried a summit co-hosted by the U.S. and Poland as an attempt to “legitimize” Israeli violations against the Palestinians.
“The U.S., in cooperation with the Polish government, is seeking to liquidate the Palestinian national project,” PLO Secretary-General Saeb Erekat said in a letter to foreign diplomats serving at the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) on Wednesday.
The summit “aims to bypass the Arab peace initiative and give a chance to Israel to normalize relations with other countries in the region,” he said.
Held in Warsaw on February 13-14, the U.S. and Poland said the international ministerial meeting would discuss peace and security in the Middle East, and critical issues such as terrorism, missile development and proliferation.
But recent remarks by senior U.S. and Polish officials have led to speculations about an attempt to build an anti-Iran coalition.
Nearly 50 countries, including Israel and several Arab states, reportedly confirmed their participation in the conference, which is officially known as the “Ministerial to Promote a Future of Peace and Security in the Middle East”.
Erekat warned that the U.S. policy toward the Palestinian issue emboldens extremists in the region.
“It is harming the prospects of security and stability in the Arab world and the rest of the world,” he said.
The PLO official stressed that the Palestinian leadership “refuses to participate in the conference or give legitimacy to it”.
The Palestinian Authority said it has not mandated anyone to talk on behalf of the Palestinians, calling on Arab states not to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or any Israeli official during the summit.
IRAN’S SAYS WARSAW MEETING ‘DEAD ON ARRIVAL’
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Wednesday that a two-day conference being co-hosted by Washington in Warsaw on Iran and the Middle East was “dead on arrival”.
“It is another attempt by the United States to pursue an obsession with Iran that is not well-founded,” Zarif told a Tehran news conference.
“The Warsaw conference, I believe, is dead on arrival.”
Zarif said not even Washington had any interest in the conference as a forum for an exchange of views among the 60 participating countries.
“I think the fact that they are not aiming to issue any agreed text but rather are just attempting to use their own statement on behalf of everybody else shows they don’t have any respect for it themselves,” he said.
“You usually don’t bring 60 countries and states together in order to speak for them. That indicates to you that they don’t believe they have anything to gain from this meeting.”