CAIRO — Arab countries are warming — slightly — to next week’s U.S.-brokered Mideast peace conference despite worries about being pressured to make too many concessions.
Syria is still on the fence about going. And Saudi Arabia is holding out for promises that the conference will launch a firm timetable to negotiate the thorniest Israeli- Palestinian issues — the borders of a Palestinian state, the status of east Jerusalem and the future of millions of Palestinian refugees.
Syria appeared to be softening its conditions for attending the gathering in Annapolis, Md., with President Bashar Assad telling his leadership it must deal with the current situation in a “rational” way. It is being lured by warmer handling by its Arab neighbors, including a visit by Jordan’s king, the first in nearly four years.
The United States has made clear it seeks high-level delegates from key Arab countries to underline support for the Palestinian-Israeli talks that have been deadlocked since 2001.
But many in the Arab world look with skepticism at what they view as a sudden U.S. renewal of interest in a new Middle East peace process.
They worry that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is being lured into a public-relations show that will have little substance, boosting Israel without committing it on the Arabs’ top demand — a withdrawal from land Israel seized in the 1967 war.
Arab foreign ministers were expected to finalize a unified stance Friday.
