LOC17:22
14:22 GMT
By Fawaz Esmairan
Al-ULA, Saudi Arabia, Oct 2 (KUNA) -- Stability in the Middle East is contigent on the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, the Arab League's former secretary general said on Thursday, underlining the need for Palestinians to dictate their own fate.
Describing Palestinian independence as an irreversible course, Amr Moussa told KUNA on the sidelines of the Munich Security conference leaders' meeting in the Saudi city of Al-Ula that growing Western recognition of Palestinian independence was not "symbolic" but based on factual basis.
He went on to say that Palestinian lands occupied by Israel in 1967 across the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem are not "legally linked" to Israel in any shape or form, emphasizing that these lands should be the geographic location for an independent Palestinian state.
The former chief of the Cairo-based bloc spoke of the magnitude of the gathering in Al-Ula, where senior experts and politicians have assembled to discuss a plethora of pressing matters, chief among them the Middle East conflict and the situation in Syria, he said.
The two-day talks' stacked agenda features issues running the gamut from global trade, regional crises and energy transitions to nuclear safety and global cooperation in energy and economics. (end)
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