RIYADH: Saudi Arabia remains committed to peace with Israel on the basis of the long-standing Arab Peace Initiative, its foreign minister said yesterday in the first official comment since the UAE agreed to normalise relations with Israel.
Israel and the UAE said last Thursday they would normalise diplomatic relations under a US-sponsored deal whose implementation could reshape Middle East politics from the Palestinian issue to the fight against Iran.
The Arab Peace Initiative was drawn up by Saudi Arabia in 2002, in which Arab nations offered Israel normalised ties in return for a statehood deal with the Palestinians and full Israeli withdrawal from territory captured in 1967.
“The kingdom considers any Israeli unilateral measures to annex Palestinian land as undermining the two-state solution,” Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said in an event in Berlin yesterday, in comments reported on Saudi’s foreign affairs ministry Twitter page.
Saudi does not recognise Israel and its air space is closed to Israeli airliners. The kingdom has repeatedly reassured Arab allies it will not endorse any Middle East peace plan that fails to address Jerusalem’s status or refugees’ right of return.
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