DAMASCUS: Arab countries have expressed strong doubts over a US proposal for a Middle East peace conference this summer.

Several governments are raising doubts about the purpose of such a conference and about the sincerity of the Bush administration in pushing for difficult compromises needed to create a Palestinian state.

The US failure to force withdrawal of Israeli soldiers from the West Bank underscores Arab doubts.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell proposed a peace conference in a surprise move last week. “I just want to reinforce this,” Powell said.

“When we talk about a conference, it’s got to be a conference that deals with all elements that I’ve described: security, the economic reform, humanitarian issues, and the political way forward.” Russia, the European Union, and the UN have supported the US plans.

The White House cautioned later that the forum would probably not propose a final settlement.

Arab League foreign ministers are due to meet this week to discuss the proposed conference and the Saudi peace initiative adopted at the Arab summit in Beirut in March. The Saudi plan proposes normalisation of relations with Israel if it withdraws to its 1967 borders.

Secretary-general of the Arab League Amr Moussa said in Cairo that Arab countries will not participate in a peace conference unless Israel vacates the territory it seized after the latest round of violence began in September 2000.

“How could we think about such a conference while Israel is still occupying the Palestinian territories?” he said. “What is the authority and agenda of this conference?”

The conference would have to aim for a comprehensive settlement, Moussa said. “Jerusalem should be negotiated, refugees should be negotiated, the question of security, general security in the region, should also be negotiated,” he said. “We have important conditions, and this would be one of the issues discussed in upcoming Arab meetings until we reach a consensus.”

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad expressed his misgivings over such a conference at a meeting with US Congressman Wayne Owens in Damascus Saturday. “What are the negotiations going to yield if there is no clear course,” he said. “The limits and criteria of the negotiations must be known.”

The Syrian President said peace must be based on UN resolutions and the principles of the Madrid conference of 1991 which launched the Arab-Israeli peace process. The US administration must have “a clear vision of peace and develop this vision in cooperation with countries concerned with pursuing the peace process,” he said.

Syria has long insisted it will not make peace with Israel until it withdraws completely from the Golan Heights, a Syrian plateau that Israel captured in 1967.

Other Arab countries have their doubts about the proposed conference. “The first step before any meeting has to be withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Palestinian territories occupied in the past weeks,” Ahmed Maher, the Egyptian foreign minister, said before travelling to Ramallah to visit Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat Saturday.

Maher and Osama al-Baz, political adviser to President Hosni Mubarak who accompanied him, stressed that any such conference had to be based on the old formula of Israel exchanging territory for peace.

In Jordan, foreign affairs minister Shaher Bak said the conference would have to have “clear references”. The Lebanese government declined to commit itself. “So far, no (details) are known about this conference, its authority, its scope, its level and its date and venue,” foreign minister Mahmoud Hammoud told reporters in Beirut.

Arafat welcomed the proposal, but said he would consult Arab leaders before deciding on participation. The Saudi government has been conspicuously silent over the proposed conference. The Bush administration had proposed the idea after talks with Crown Prince Abdullah.

Israeli spokesman Gideon Meir said last week his government needed to know more about the conference before deciding whether to attend. In the past, Israelis have refused to discuss Palestinian statehood during periods of prolonged violence, demanding resolution of security issues first.

Western diplomats say huge obstacles lie ahead but that similar difficulties were overcome before the Madrid conference. “There’s a precedent and Madrid was very, very painful; it was no, no, no from all sides,” said a senior European diplomat. “But it was held after all, and now we’re in the same situation.” —Dawn/InterPress Service.