GCC Concerned Over U.S. Plan to Move Embassy to JerusalemThe Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) on Saturday voiced deep concern over the U.S. determination to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, considering such move as a violation of international laws and resolutions.This was part of a unified GCC stance toward the issue pertaining to the Middle East peace process, said a communique issued at the end of the two-day GCC foreign ministers meeting in the western Saudi city of Jeddah. U.S. President Bill Clinton has said that he would transfer the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to reward Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak for what the U.S. called his flexibility in the peace talks with the Palestinians. The most recent Palestinian-Israeli peace talks at the Camp David last month brokered by the Clinton failed over the future status of Jerusalem, which both Israel and the Palestinians claim as their capital. And the hope for a permanent peace deal by the September 13 deadline is diminishing in view of the difficulties for the two sides to come to agreement over key final-status issues. In the communique, the GCC ministers strongly criticized Israel and held it "responsible for the suspension of the peace process and negotiations between concerned parties due to Tel Aviv's defiance to peace requirements." The council, on the other hand, reasserted its firm stance that just and lasting peace will not be realized except with the returns of full rights to the Palestinians and the establishment of their independent state with Jerusalem as its capital, the communique said. The Gulf alliance also expressed regret over the failure of last month's Camp David summit between Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. The GCC, a regional political and economic alliance established in 1981, groups Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. |
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