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Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Ayman Safadi on Tuesday said the international community is required to stop Israel from pressing ahead with its plans to annex occupied Palestinian territories to protect peace and international law.

The minister warned of grave consequences on peace in the region and on Jordanian-Israeli relations if Israel proceeds with its annexation scheme.

Speaking at a meeting of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee (AHLC), which allocates donor funding to Palestinian institutions in Gaza and the West Bank, Safadi said: "All those who believe in peace must speak against annexation. All those who want an end to conflict must act to prevent annexation."

"Preventing annexation is protecting peace", the minister told the teleconference, which was attended by ministers and representatives of 24 countries as well as the EU, UN, World Bank, IMF and Middle East Peace Quartet.

He stressed: "We stand at a defining crossroads: We either fall deeper into the abyss of conflict and hopelessness. Or we save the peace that is a regional and an international necessity."

"The message should be clear: Annexation will not go unanswered. For if it does, there will only be fiercer conflict. Annexation will make the two-state solution an impossibility; it will make institutionalized apartheid an inevitability; it will diminish all chances for lasting and comprehensive regional peace," Safadi warned.

Safadi said that Jordan will continue to do everything available to achieve a just and comprehensive peace that the peoples would accept and protect, emphasizing that the Kingdom will continue to take all necessary measures to protect its interests.

"The two-state solution and the establishment of an independent and viable Palestinian state thereon is a Jordanian national interest. We warn of the grave consequences of the implementation of the annexation decision on the quest to achieve regional peace and on Jordanian-Israeli relations," Safadi said.

Safadi asserted that comprehensive peace is a Palestinian and Arab strategic choice whose path is the two-state solution, which guarantees the establishment of an independent and viable Palestinian state on pre-June 4, 1967 lines, with East Jerusalem as its capital, living side by side a secure and accepted Israel.

The minister stressed that "the priority at this crucial moment must be to prevent annexation and find horizons for relaunching negotiations to achieve peace on the basis of the two-state solution and international law.

"The economy will not develop under the suffocating claws of occupation. Peace will not be achieved by annexing a third of the Palestinian state," he said, adding: "We count on all of our friends and partners in the international community to do the right thing, to speak out against annexation, to effectively and immediately act to prevent this unprecedented threat to peace, and for creating horizons for engagement."

Safadi further said: "We must collectively do everything possible to ensure that negotiations on the basis of international law resume to achieve the two-state solution and thus realize just peace; and to ensure that our future in the region is one of progress and hope, and not of conflict and despair."

The minister thanked the participating countries for their support to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and said that he and Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Anna Lindh, look forward to this support needed to ensure the success of a conference that the two countries will organize to mobilize financial support for the agency at the end of this month.

Noteworthy, the AHLC was set up in 1993 by the by the Multilateral Steering Group of the multilateral talks on Middle East peace in the context of the Washington Conference after the signing of the Oslo agreement.

Norway chairs the committee, which holds two meetings every year. The committee includes 15 members: Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Russia, the United States, Japan, Canada, the Palestinian National Authority, the European Union, Israel, the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.