Arab League (AL) Secretary General Amr Moussa is is expected to arrive in Damascus on Wednesday for talks with Syrian President Bashar Assad and his aides over the upcoming Middle East peace conference in the United States, diplomatic sources said.

Moussa and Syrian officials are also expected to discuss the preparations for an extraordinary meeting for the foreign ministers of the member countries in the AL committee to follow up on Arab peace initiatives with Israel, the sources added.

Syria has repeatedly said it will not participate in the conference in Annapolis, Maryland that was called by US President George W Bush unless the issue of the occupied Golan Heights is placed on the agenda.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hinted earlier this week that Syria would be invited to the Annapolis, a move that would contradict US policy of isolating the Baathist Syrian government, press reports said.

Rice had also said it would be likely that to follow up on the 2002 Saudi peace proposal, members of the AL committee - Syria is among them - would be invited to Annapolis.

Moussa has said that Arab countries would need guarantees and a timetable for talks over a final solution to their conflict with Israel as a condition to their participation in the Annapolis.

According to Moussa, the Arab countries are against open-ended talks with Israel. "This was our mistake in the 1990s that we will not repeat," he said.


Agencies

Güncelleme Tarihi: 14 Kasım 2007, 17:40