Mauritania's detained president to be freed

The leaders of Mauritania's recent coup have agreed to free the country's president, who has been under house arrest since the military takeover four months ago, international officials said Sunday.Abda

President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi will be released no later than Dec. 24, a statement by the African Union and the European Union said. The president's unconditional release has been an important demand of the international community, which cut off aid to the West African nation following the coup.

Abdallahi was elected president last year in the country's first free election in more than two decades. On Aug. 6, hours after he fired several high-ranking generals, a military junta declared a coup and placed Abdallahi under house arrest in a government-owned villa. In November, the junta bowed to international pressure and transported Abdallahi to his native village, where they claimed he was no longer under house arrest.

The statement issued by the AU and EU as well, as the Arab League and the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference, said Abdallahi's release "will be the first step in answering the requests of the international community." Moulaye Ould Mohamed Laghdaf, the man the junta named prime minister, also announced the country will hold a national conference starting Dec. 27 to prepare for the country's next presidential election.

Annapolis peace conference

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice organized and hosted the conference. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and U.S. President George W. Bush attended the meeting. A partial list of over 40 invitees was released on 20. November 2007, including China, the Arab League, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations most of whom have accepted the invitation. Syria, Saud Arabia and Egypt participated on ministerial level.

The goal of the conference was to produce a substantive document on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict along the lines of President George W. Bush's Roadmap For Peace, with the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state.

The conference on November 27, 2007, took place approximately 30 years after Anwar El Sadat, president of Egypt, visited Israel on November 19, 1977 to sign a peace agreement and appoximately 60 years after the newly-created United Nations approved the UN Partition Plan (United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181) on November 29, 1947, dividing the country into two states, one Arab and one Jewish. Jerusalem was to be designated an international city – a corpus separatum – administered by the UN to avoid conflict over its status. The Jewish community accepted the plan, but the Arab League and Arab Higher Committee rejected it.

Abbas stated that a clear agenda was necessary for the conference, and affirmed in early October that only a Palestinian state comprising the West Bank and Gaza Strip in their entirety would be acceptable, with any permanent Israeli control of land beyond its 1967 borders subject to discussion on a one-to-one basis. He further demanded that all six central issues be debated at the conference: Jerusalem, refugees and right of return, borders, settlements, water and security.

In October 2007, Prime Minister Olmert indicated that he would be willing to give parts of East Jerusalem to the Palestinians as part of a broader peace settlement at Annapolis, drawing considerable criticism from right-wing Israeli and foreign Jewish organizations and Christian Zionists. Knesset members from within Olmert's own ruling coalition have also been trying to stop such plans.

Prior to the conference, President Bush met with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in the White House. After meeting with Olmert and Abbas, President Bush read from a joint statement, signed by both parties, "We agreed to immediately launch good faith, bilateral negotiations in order to conclude a peace treaty resolving all outstanding issues, including core issues, without exception," and that, "The final peace settlement will establish Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people just as Israel is the homeland for the Jewish people."

Wikipedia

Arab-Israeli peace talks

BBC

The two Arab countries with ties to Israel have paid an historic visit to the Jewish state to "extend the hand of peace" on behalf of their fellow Arabs. The Egyptian and Jordanian foreign ministers' visit was to present a peace plan backed by the Arab League, which has no diplomatic ties with Israel.

The proposal envisages the recognition of Israel if it leaves occupied Palestinian land. Israel's prime minister has said the Arab plan contains positive elements.

"We are extending a hand of peace on behalf of the whole region to you, and we hope that we will be able to create the momentum needed to resume fruitful and productive negotiations," said Jordan's Abdulelah Khatib.

Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have not seen progress for seven years, a period in which more than 5,000 people have died in violence, the large majority of them Palestinians. Mr Khatib said Israel needed to agree on a precise timetable "not to waste this historic opportunity".

The visit comes a day after the maiden mission of new envoy Tony Blair, the former UK prime minister, and is part of a flurry of diplomatic efforts.

'Common ground'
Mr Khatib and Egypt's Ahmed Aboul Gheit are presenting a long-standing Arab League initiative that was readopted at a meeting in Saudi Arabia recently.

The plan first adopted by Arab League in 2002 calls for

• "full Israeli withdrawal from all the Arab territories occupied since June 1967" ,
• Israel's "acceptance of an independent Palestinian State, with East Jerusalem as its capital".
• All Arab states would establish "normal relations... with Israel" and "consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended"
• Calls for a "just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem"

The initiative offers Israel normal ties with all Arab states in return for a full Israeli withdrawal from territory it occupied in 1967, the creation of a Palestinian state and a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem.

Envoy Blair holds West Bank talks