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U.S. Invites Nations To Mideast Conference

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By GLENN KESSLER, The Washington Post

Published: November 21, 2007

WASHINGTON - The State Department formally announced Tuesday night that the United States has invited representatives of nearly 50 countries and institutions - including Saudi Arabia and Syria - to sit down with Israelis and Palestinians in Annapolis, Md., next week in a conference designed to kick-start substantive peace talks in the region.

The conference Tuesday at the U.S. Naval Academy will be "a signal opportunity" to launch bilateral negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, Assistant Secretary C. David Welch said, noting that it comes after "a long period in which there have been no such negotiations."

The last such talks collapsed at the end of the Clinton administration in 2000, during a wave of Palestinian suicide attacks known as the second intifada.

President Bush announced plans for the event in July, though then he called it only a "meeting," but the details and even the date were not announced until now so that the administration could find the right combination of words and gestures to ensure high-level Arab participation.

The central goal is to entice Saudi Arabia to send its foreign minister to Annapolis, the first time such a senior Saudi official would have joined in a gathering with Israelis.

Bush weighed in with his own call to Saudi King Abdullah on Tuesday, though details were not provided by the White House. As a way to entice Saudi participation, diplomatic sources said, the formal invitation also drew on language from the 2003 "road map" plan for peace that mentions an Arab League initiative promoted by Abdullah.

That plan offers diplomatic relations with Israel if it withdraws to the 1967 borders and provides a "just solution" to the demands of Palestinian refugees. Though Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has praised elements of the Arab League initiative, Israeli officials thus far have rejected mentioning it in a joint statement, being crafted with the Palestinians, that will be issued in Annapolis.

To entice Syrian participation, the invitation also includes road map language calling for a "comprehensive settlement" - diplomatic code for negotiations with Damascus and other neighbors, not just the Israeli-Palestinian track.

"It is a nod to the Syrians and a nod to the Saudis," said Robert Malley, a Middle East analyst at the International Crisis Group. "We will know soon if either nod is enough for them to come."

Arab officials had also pressed for an abundant gathering of nations, so that the tableaux would not be just Israel and its Arab neighbors. As a result, countries such as Brazil, Senegal and Norway also received invitations.

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