Decision Relating to the Situation in the Middle East

DECISION ON THE SITUATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Council:

1. TAKES NOTE of the Report;

2. RECALLS all the relevant resolutions adopted by the Assembly of Heads of State and Government and the Council of Ministers of the Organization of African Unity on the Middle East situation, which affirm that the Question of Palestine is the core of the Middle East conflict and that no comprehensive, just and lasting peace can be established unless Israel fully withdraws from all occupied Palestinian and Arab territories, including East Jerusalem, the Syrian Golan Heights and the Lebanese Shabaa farms and unless the Palestinian people exercise their inalienable national rights in accordance with UN resolutions, in particular, Security Council Resolutions 242, 338, 465, 478 and General Assembly Resolutions 181 of 1947, 194 of 1948 and on the basis of the land-for peace formula;

3. URGES the United Nations and the International Community to guarantee Israeli’s full compliance with the resolutions adopted by the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency that call for the use of Israel’s nuclear installations for peaceful purposes and compel it to open its nuclear installations to international inspection;

4. CALLS UPON the Government of Israel to join the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty and refrain from the manufacture, production, testing and possession of nuclear weapons and to place its nuclear facilities under the comprehensive safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency so as to ensure that the Middle East remains an area free of nuclear weapons and all weapons of mass destruction;

5. CONDEMNS the Israeli Government for its continued military aggression against Syria and Lebanon which threatens peace and security in the whole region and URGES the release of all Lebanese prisoners held in Israeli jails;

6. TAKES NOTE of the incomplete withdrawal of Israeli troops from South Lebanon and the efforts deployed by the United Nations to restore normalcy to that region and REQUESTS the Government of Israel to complete the withdrawal of its forces from the Lebanese Shabaa farms in South Lebanon and the Syrian Golan Heights;

7. CALLS for the resumption of negotiations between Israel and Syria, on the basis of Resolutions 242, 338 and the tenets of the Peace Process established at the Madrid Conference and the full implementation of all other agreements and commitments undertaken on all tracks of the peace process in the region;

8. URGE all the parties concerned to honour their commitments and resume the negotiations in order to create the necessary conditions for lasting peace in the region.