CAIRO, April 22 (KUNA) -- The Arab Interim Parliament (AIP) called Sunday for restricting Arab contacts with Israel to Egypt and Jordan pending the establishment of comprehensive peace in the Middle East.
Briefing reporters on the AIP session that came to a close here Sunday, AIP Speaker Mohammad Jassem Al-Saqr said the session recommended that in case Israel refused to positively respond to the Arab peace initiative, the Arab leaders should hold an emergency summit to ponder other alternatives to restore Arab rights.
The session decided to form an AIP standing committee to coordinate contacts between Arab national parliament and the League of Arab States, on one hand, and foreign parliaments and regional and international organizations, on the other, regarding ways to activate the Arab peace overture.
Al-Saqr urged regional and international parliaments and organizations to back the overture with a view to establishing comprehensive and permanent peace in the Middle East in line with the international legitimacy resolutions.
Peace in the region must ensure Israeli pullout from the occupied Arab territories to borders of June 4, 1967, the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, and the return of Palestinian refugees to their homeland under the United Nations General Assembly Resolution No. 94 for 1948, he underscored.
The AIP called on the Arab mass media to shoulder their responsibility for lobbying support for the peace initiative and explain to the world public opinion the risks of Israel's stubbornness, according to the Kuwaiti parliamentarian.
As for the pan-Arab national security, the AIP called for activation of the Arab Joint Defense Treaty and promotion of Arab economic integration.
It also urged the national parliaments of Arab countries to accelerate endorsement of the Basic System of the Arab Council for Peace and Security in a bid to enhance their countries' preparedness to potential risks.
It asked the AIP Committee on Foreign Policy and National Security to meet in Damascus, Syria, this late June to file a report to the AIP on the issue.
The session also decided to hold the coming AIP session in Damascus between September 5 and 8, Al-Saqr pointed out.
Asserting the important role of the Arab Atomic Energy Agency (AAEA) and the recent Riyadh summit resolution on nuclear energy programs, the AIP called for working out a pan-Arab program for peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
The AIP session also dealt with the disaster inflicted on the Somali people due to the fragrant aggression of the Ethiopian forces on Mogadishu.
It urged the Arab countries to adopt a clear-cut political stance towards the systematical genocide practiced by the Ethiopian forces against the Somali people.
The AIP also urged regional and international organizations, particularly the LAS, the African Union, the European Union and the United Nations to form fact-finding committees to probe the war crimes perpetrated in the African Horn country, Al-Saqr added.
