Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said Friday negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians should be given a chance, but wondered whether Israel was ready for “real peace.” “We see the negotiations start, let us give them a chance,” Moussa said at the Forum Ambrosetti, an annual political and economic summit in Cernobbio, on the Lake of Como in Northern Italy. “I don't want to be pessimistic on the first day of negotiations,” he added. “Let us see what kind of compromise (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu is offering, we have never heard from the Israeli side any initiative or any concrete position,” Moussa said. He wondered whether Israel was ready to accept “a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital.” Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas have vowed to meet twice a month in a bid to hammer out an accord, after Thursday launching the first direct negotiations in 20 months a meeting in Washington. Ahead of Thursday's Washington meeting, Moussa said there was widespread pessimism in the region about new peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Meanwhile, Egypt has canceled a visit by Iran's foreign minister to protest comments in which he accused Arab leaders of betrayal for attending the new round of Mideast peace talks in Washington. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki had been scheduled to visit Cairo Monday for a meeting of Nonaligned Movement members. Mottaki said Arab leaders who attended the relaunch of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in Washington this week were “betraying their nations.” “Some leaders ... who follow America's orders must understand that they are betraying their nations,” Iran's Fars news agency quoted him as saying Tuesday. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordanian King Abdullah II attended the talks.
