CAIRO, July 12: Arab foreign ministers began talks in Cairo Friday to draw up a joint stand on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ahead of a meeting in New York next week of the so-called Middle East quartet.

Palestinian international cooperation minister Nabil Shaath called on his colleagues to counter last month’s call from US President George Bush for the sidelining of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

The foreign ministers would “examine the ideas” in Bush’s June 24 policy speech and those of the European Union presidency, Sami Koronfol, Lebanon’s permanent representative to the Cairo- based Arab League, told reporters on Thursday.

Bush called for Palestinian reforms and a change of leadership as a condition for Washington’s support for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Representatives of 11 Arab League members are attending the meetings of the follow-up committees for an Arab peace initiative and for the other decisions adopted at an Arab summit held in Beirut in March.

The initiative, based on Saudi proposals, offers Israel normal ties with Arab states in return for its full withdrawal from the territories it occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.

The Palestinians are also seeking a speeding up of Arab financial aid.

The meeting of the quartet had been scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, but the US State Department said on Thursday all the business would take place on Tuesday due to the participants’ scheduling problems.

Plans for a meeting between the quartet and three Arab foreign ministers had also changed, a second US official said.

Instead of meeting with all the Arab ministers on Tuesday, the quartet members will likely only see those of Jordan and Egypt over a dinner that night, the official said.

Egypt’s Ahmed Maher and Jordan’s Moasher are now expected to meet up with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal and US Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington on July 18, the official said.— AFP