DAVOS, Jan 25: Israel, Jordan and the Palestinians have agreed to create a 500-kilometre-long `valley of peace’ common economic zone, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres said on Thursday.
“I do believe that the time has come, that while the politics should be done in a couple -- between the Palestinians and us -- the economy in our region should be done by a troika, the Jordanians, the Palestinians and us,” Mr Peres said at the World Economic Forum.
“The three countries have agreed to take the whole length of the frontier between Jordan, Israel and the Palestinians (West Bank), 500 kilometres long, and convert it into an ongoing economic zone,” he added.
Mr Peres, who was speaking during a public debate with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, did not give details on what parts of the frontier between Israel and Palestinian territory might be involved.
Dubbing the zone a `valley of peace’, Mr Peres underlined that a huge market could develop in the Arab world over the next decade and appealed for investment.
“It can lower the tone and the flames of Muslim resistance and do it very quickly,” Mr Peres explained.The economic zone would include cooperation on water, agriculture, joint airports and tourism, he added.
Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority launched a two-year feasibility study last month to try and save the rapidly vanishing Dead Sea.
Ephraim Sneh, the Israeli deputy defence minister, said in Davos that a zone would take up the entire valley from the Red Sea near Aqaba to the Sea of Galilee.
Mr Peres has been pushing the project `for a long time’, Mr Sneh said, saying it would bring together a `convergence of interests’ between the three countries.—AFP
