Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, center, sits with Arab League Secretary General Nabil Al-Araby, left, and Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr during their meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Saturday. — AP Mohammed Mar'i Saudi Gazette RAMALLAH – The Arab League Secretary General Nabil Al-Arabi and Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr arrived in Ramallah Saturday for talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The Arab diplomats arrived in the Presidential compound of Al-Muqata'a, via Amman, in a Jordanian Air Force helicopter so as to avoid passing through Israeli checkpoints. Riad Al-Malki, the Palestinian Minister of Foreign Affairs, said that the diplomats will discuss with Abbas the issues of the stalled peace process with Israel and the financial crisis the Palestinian Authority is facing. Al-Malki added that the two sides will discuss ways to urge Arab countries to carry out their pledges to provide a previously announced “financial safety net” to the Palestinian Authority. Earlier this month, representatives of the Arab League who met in Qatar's capital Doha pledged to transfer a monthly sum of 100 million dollars to “the state of Palestine”. According to Al-Malki, Abbas and the diplomats will also discuss a decision by an Arab League ministerial committee to hold talks with the UN Security Council, the United States, Russia, China and the European Union on a mechanism to relaunch Palestinian-Israeli peace talks. He added that the visit was meant to demonstrate Arab solidarity with the Palestinians following the Palestinians' successful bid to upgrade its UN status to non-member state. Al-Malki said that the visit of the delegation came after a scheduled visit of Qatar's Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani this week was postponed. The Palestinian minister said that the visit was postponed till next month, “because the Emir of Qatar has some other commitments.” King Abdullah II of Jordan was the first Arab leader to visit the West Bank right after the UN upgrade, while Israel amid the growing visits of Arab leaders and diplomats, increased its settlement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and decided to build 6,000 houses during December. On Wednesday, Abbas revealed that there was a new initiative declared by European efforts to resume the talks in 2013. Abbas said that European countries like Italy, Spain and Britain were involved. Abbas, in comments in a meeting with Meretz Chairwoman Zahava Gal-On and in an interview with the Israeli daily Haaretz, threatened to dump responsibility for the Palestinians on the Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu if diplomatic stagnation continues after the Israeli election and construction in the settlements doesn't stop.
