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Last Updated: Oct 2, 2008 - 7:57:20 AM |
"Israel, Iran, Turkey and Arab states should sit together in one
organisation," Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmad Al-Khalifa was quoted in the
pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat as saying.
"Aren't we all members of a global organisation called the United
Nations? Why not [come together] on a regional basis? This is the only
way to solve our problems. There's no other way to solve them, now or
in 200 years."
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Al-Hayat, which interviewed the Bahraini chief diplomat in New York,
said he had proposed the establishment of a regional bloc in a speech
to the UN General Assembly.
The tiny Gulf kingdom is a major ally of the United States and has a
free trade agreement with Washington. It also hosts the US Navy's Fifth
Fleet.
Bahrain's crown prince, Sheikh Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa, met Israeli
officials during World Economic Forum summits in 2000 and 2003, while
Sheikh Khaled met Israeli counterpart Tzipi Livni at the UN last year.
But political groupings in Bahrain, which is ruled by a Sunni dynasty
and has a Shi'ite majority, resist any attempt at normalisation of ties
with Israel.
Only two Arab countries - Egypt and Jordan - have full fledged peace
treaties with Israel. Bahrain's Gulf neighbour Qatar, another close US
ally, is one of a handful of Arab countries to maintain political
contacts with the Jewish state.
Forging ties with Israel without a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict is generally unpopular among ordinary Arabs.
"Why don't we sit together even if we disagree, even if we don't
recognise each other? Let's be in a single organisation in order to
overcome the difficult stage through which the Middle East is passing -
a stage that remains hostage to the past," Sheikh Khaled told Al-Hayat,
referring to the decades-old Arab-Israeli conflict.
Told that his proposal might be perceived by some as a "dream" since it
was hard to see hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sitting
alongside Israel, Sheikh Khaled, whose country occasionally has
problems with Iran, said: "If this is perceived as a dream, well, many
dreams have become reality."
Source:Ocnus.net 2008
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