HIGHLIGHTS:Manoeuver To Cover Atrocities.
Syria's Participation Crucial.
Implementing UN Withdrawal Resolution Comes First.
(Read photo caption within)

STORYArab League Secretary General, Amr Moussa, a number of leading Arab countries, the EU and Russia expressed reservations at an Israeli proposal floated by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and quickly endorsed by US secretary of State, Colin Powell calling for regional Mideast peace conference.

Sharon suggested meeting to Powell when the two men met in Tel Aviv on Sunday. A 1991 international conference in Madrid, almost all Arab countries and major world powers and the United Nations participated , launched an ambitious, but now foundering, Mideast peace process.

A MANOEUVER TO DEFLECT WORLD ATTENTION FROM SAVAGE OFFENSIVE

Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa said Tuesday that the proposal was only aimed to deflect attention from Israel's military actions, his office reported.


Mussa was speaking to journalists traveling with him to London, according to a transcript of his remarks sent by his headquarters in Cairo, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Before proposing conferences, Mussa said, the Israeli government should start first by implementing an immediate pullout from the Palestinian territories and lift the siege on the Palestinian people and Arafat.

He said that, based on his contacts, Arab Foreign Ministers had "suspicions concerning the intentions of the Israeli government," believing it "seeks to waste time."

Arab states widely feared that Sharon was playing a trick with his U.S.-backed call, with Syria rejecting the proposal outright.

Newspapers in Egypt and Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, scoffed at the offer.

Palestinian analysts already dismissed Sharon's proposal as a ploy to give his army time to finish off its offensive in the West Bank, a view echoed in Cairo, Amman, Beirut, Damascus, as well as Gulf Arab capitals.

SYRIA'S PARTICIPATION CRUCIAL

In Damascus, Syria denounced Sharon's proposal with the ruling party newspaper Tuesday calling it a "dirty maneuver that is totally rejected."

Syria's participation in such a conference would be crucial. Syria and Lebanon are the last of Israel's Arab neighbors without peace deals with Israel. Egypt and Jordan signed treaties with Israeli in 1979 and 1994, respectively.

Powell, who is shuttling around the region on a peace mission, raised the idea Monday during a meeting in Damascus with Syrian President Bashar Assad.

In Cairo, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said any conference must be based on previous peace talks. The Madrid conference "has laid very important principles that must be preserved," Maher was quoted as saying by Al-Gumhuria newspaper. He said Egypt had not been officially notified of Sharon's proposal but that it welcomes all efforts.

Mussa denounced Sharon as "the self-proclaimed referee" who decides who attends the conference, complaining he excluded Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and the European Union.

IMPLEMENTING UN WITHDRAL RESOLUTION COMES FIRST

Russia and the European Union, meanwhile, said Tuesday that any peace conference should not hold up implementation of a U.N. resolution calling for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the West Bank and an end to Palestinian terrorism.
"The resolutions ... should be immediately implemented in total," Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told a press conference in Luxembourg, where he met EU officials.

"What we now need to focus on ... the compliance with U.N. Security Council resolutions," said Foreign Minister Josep Pique of Spain, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency.

SOURCE: VARIOUS, (Islamweb & News Agencies)

PHOTO CAPTION:

Secretary-General of the Arab League Amr Moussa gestures as he talks during a press conference following the last session of the Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo Saturday, April 6, 2002. Arab foreign ministers met to discuss ways of increasing their response to Israel's military offensive on the West Bank amid calls from Iraq and Iran to use oil as a weapon. (AP Phto/Amr Nabil)
- Apr 06 2:26 PM ET