Cairo, Feb 9 (IANS) Egypt announced on Sunday that Cairo will host an emergency Arab summit on February 27 to address the latest developments concerning the Palestinian issue and the Gaza Strip, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The summit was decided to be held after Egypt’s high-level consultations with Arab nations, including Palestine, which requested the summit, and coordination with Bahrain, the current chair of the Arab League (AL) summit and the AL Secretariat, according to the statement.
The announcement followed controversial remarks by US President Donald Trump suggesting the relocation of Palestinians from Gaza to neighbouring countries, including Egypt and Jordan. The proposal has been widely rejected both regionally and internationally, Xinhua news agency reported.
During a joint press conference in Washington with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, Trump said that the US planned to assume control of Gaza and redevelop it after relocating its Palestinian residents.
Trump has previously floated similar proposals, which both Egypt and Jordan have explicitly rejected, reaffirming their opposition to any forced displacement of Palestinians.
Arab states have rejected Trump’s recent comments about relocating Gaza’s residents and creating a “Riviera of the Middle East” there, as have Palestinian leaders.
Trump proposed this on Tuesday when he met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington D.C.
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Friday, Trump said he viewed the proposal as “a real estate transaction, where we’ll be an investor in that part of the world”. He added that he was in “no rush to do anything”.
Several countries also condemned a suggestion by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — that Saudi Arabia has enough land for a Palestinian state.
Netanyahu appeared to be joking in response to a slip by an Israeli TV interviewer, but his words reverberated through the region at a time when tensions are running high.
Over the past few days, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty made a series of phone calls with several Arab counterparts to mass regional efforts in a bid to thwart the US proposal of displacing the Palestinian people.
Upon directives from President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, Abdelatty phoned the Foreign Ministers of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Jordan, Iraq, Algeria, Tunisia, Mauritania, and Sudan.
–IANS
int/khz
