March 12, 2002	Tuesday	Zilhaj 27, 1422

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RIYADH, March 11: Foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) at a meeting here on Monday endorsed the Saudi peace plan.

The meeting was held to formulate a unified GCC position on Prince Abdullah’s peace initiative.

In a statement issued after the meeting, the ministers “hailed the Saudi peace plan and pledged to muster support of the international community for the Saudi initiative”.

The meeting also decided to lobby the Security Council, the US, the EU and Russia for the Saudi peace initiative.

The Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) has also urged the UN Secretary General to intervene to save the Palestinians from the Israeli onslaught.

Earlier Iran extended its support to Prince Abdullah’s initiative. This was regarded as crucial, especially in view of the Iranian influence on Hezbollah.

There has already been some modifications to the the Saudi proposal. The term used after the last week’s Arab League meeting at Cairo was “complete peace” to Israel in lieu of the return of occupied Arab lands.

The change in language from “complete normalization” to “complete peace” was attributed to Syria’s insistence to leave the normalization of relations between Israel and its immediate Arab neighbours on a government-to-government basis, rather than people-to-people basis.