PARIS, March 19: Former Lebanese finance minister George Corm, here to promote a book, says that he doesn’t expect much from the upcoming Arab League summit.

“Don’t expect for the summit to produce any miracles,” says Corm, who begs to differ with the importance being accorded to a peace plan being promoted by Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

The plan, in his estimation is neither new nor destined to bring about peace in the Middle East. “I think it bizarre that the plan is being promoted as a Saudi ‘initiative’,” notes Corm, author of a major work on the subject.

“All that Prince Abdullah is doing is reaffirming a traditional Arab position. And that position consists in saying that a complete normalization of the situation is possible in exchange for the total evacuation of the occupied territories.”

But then, in his estimation, Prince Abdullah’s plan contains two major faults.

“Firstly,” notes Corm, “he presents the project of a complete evacuation of the occupied territories purely in a Palestinian context. It’s the very reason why Syria wanted originally to have included the problem of the Golan.”

Then too, notes Corm, in presenting his second objection to the Prince Abdullah plan, “the exchange of peace for territories doesn’t resolve at all the problem of the right to return of Palestinian refugees.”