CAIRO - Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi Monday described the Middle East Quartet as ineffective and said he expected Arabs to approach the United Nations to pressure Israel into withdrawing from Palestinian lands. The UN Security Council says “let’s have more committees... to follow up this, at close rooms, and nobody knows what is happening and nothing happens and that is the Quartet,” he told AFP. “I expect that the Arabs go to the Security Council very soon and say we don’t want all this. You have 242, which said territories occupied have to be deoccupied. Let’s carry out that,” he said of a 1967 UN Security Council resolution.
The Quartet, comprising the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union, was set up in 2002 to promote talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on establishing a Palestinian state next to Israel.
“So all this is going to be looked at and I expect this will be changed,” Arabi said.
“Either the Security Council takes its responsibilities or we might ask even for an international conference. This is in the air,” he said, referring to a meeting of an Arab League task force on the peace process that will meet in Qatar on Sunday.
The Arab League had proposed to Israel a peace deal in which Arab countries establish diplomatic relations with the Jewish state in turn for its withdrawal from Palestinian lands and an equitable solution for Palestinian refugees.