Arab Foreign Ministers' Conference Concludes, Voicing Support to Lebanon

The 113th Arab Foreign Ministers' Conference concluded on Saturday in Beirut, voicing support to Lebanon and calling for suspension of normalizing ties with Israel which have been launching attacks against Lebanon.

The final resolutions of the conference, which were read by Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Esmat Abdel Meguid, urged countries involved in multilateral negotiations to reconsider their participation until bilateral peace talks achieve substantial results.

The resolutions also denounce Israel for its continued occupation of southern Lebanon and aggressions on Lebanese territory.

At the opening session of the conference, Abdel-Meguid and all member states spoke with nearly the same words, showing Arab solidarity and their support to Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinians to take back all occupied lands by Israel.

Abdel-Meguid expressed the bloc's support to Lebanese resistance aimed at recovering south Lebanon, which has been controlled by Israel.

In 1985, Israel carved out an area of 850 square kilometers as a "security zone" in south Lebanon to protect settlements along its northern borders from attacks by anti-Israel groups in the Arab country.

Since then, Lebanese guerrilla groups, mainly the Syrian and Iranian-backed Hezbollah, have been fighting to oust Israeli soldiers out of the occupied zone, which comprises 10 percent of the Lebanese territory.

Abdel-Meguid also urged Arab countries' political and financial support to Lebanon that suffered several large-scale aggressions by Israel in decades.

The latest one took place on February 8 when Israel destroyed three Lebanese power relay stations and wounded 30 civilians in its air raids as retaliation to Hezbollah's attacks.

Saudi Arabia has offered 100 million U.S. dollars in soft loans and a donation of 30 million dollars to Lebanon.

On Thursday Kuwait signed an agreement with Lebanon to grant 8.5 million dollars to Lebanon for its rehabilitation of three power relay stations.

In the session, Arab countries unanimously agreed on the simultaneity of Lebanese and Syrian tracks in the peace negotiations with Israel.

The Arab foreign ministers also expressed support to Palestine's declaration of an independent state within this year with east Jerusalem as its capital, with or without a peace agreement with Israel.

It was reported that the Arab world is endeavoring to reconstruct the Arab solidarity which vanished after the Gulf War in 1991 when Iraq invaded its Arab neighbor Kuwait.

The 113th Arab Foreign Ministers' Conference is the first which has been held in Lebanon since 1975 when the civil war erupted in the country.

The Arab League decided to shift the venue of the conference from Cairo to Beirut to show Arab solidarity with and the bloc's support to Lebanon.

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