Wednesday 20 April 2011

Moussa: Camp David Accords have expired


<p>File photo of Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa during a meeting with Arab League's permanent members on Egyptian and Tunisian situation after revolution, Cairo, 14 February, 2011.</p>
Photographed by Amr Abdalla
The Camp David Accords signed between Egypt and Israel have expired, Arab League chief and potential Egyptian presidential candidate Amr Moussa has said.
According to an Egyptian news website, Masrawy, Moussa, who participated in the negotiations with Israel in 1978, gave these statements during a discussion with Egyptian youth sponsored by Masrawy.

The Camp David Accords have expired and they do not govern the situation now, he said.
"What governs the relationship between the two countries is the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 and the Egyptian-Israeli treaty," he continued.

Saudi Arabia launched an Arab peace initiative in 2002 that called for the establishment of an internationally-recognized Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, the return of  Palestinian refugees and Israel's withdrawal from the Golan Heights in exchange for Arab normalization with Israel.

Moussa was not clear about which treaty he referred to, but he most likely meant the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty signed on 26 March 1979 in Washington D.C., which is a development of the broader framework agreed upon in the Camp David Accords.

This peace treaty stipulates that each state recognize the other, that the extended war between Arabs and Israel should stop and that Israel withdraw its troops, machinery and settlers from the Sinai Peninsula.
Former President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed the Camp David Accords on 17 September 1978, 13 days after secret negotiations at the US presidential retreat in Maryland.

Egypt and Israel have since had what analysts describe as "cold peace."
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