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NAM urges release of Palestinian political prisoners

Arab World Materials 27 May 2011 16:15 (UTC +04:00)

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Friday condemned Israel's treatment of Palestinian political prisoners and urged the Jewish state to release them, DPA reported.

At the conclusion of a three-day meeting on Bali NAM foreign ministers said they supported the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the borders before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

The stance is similar to that of US President Barack Obama. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the idea.

The statement called for the release of "a substantial number of Palestinian political prisoners" held in Israel.

Nabil Al-Arabi, Egypt's foreign minister and chair of the NAM, said Israel held about 6,000 Palestinian political prisoners, some of them children under 18 and women.

"NAM condemns in the strongest terms the inhumane practices against Palestinian political prisoners and their systematic torture," Al-Arabi said.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said the issue of Palestinian political prisoners had been a stumbling block in efforts to achieve a just solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

"Many of the prisoners are Palestinian officials and members of the legislative council, who in the mainstream of the Palestinian political process should work with Israeli counterparts to negotiate the way forward," he said.

The NAM foreign ministerial meeting marked the bloc's 50th anniversary and aimed to reinvent its global role in order to stay relevant in a post-Cold War world.

The bloc was created in 1961 at the height of the Cold War as a solidarity movement among developing countries not aligned to either the United States or the Soviet Union.

Al-Arabi met his Iranian counterpart Ali Akbar Salehi to discuss re-establishing diplomatic ties on the sidelines of the Bali meeting, Egypt's MENA news agency said.

Al-Arabi was quoted as saying that Egypt's parliament would review the proposal after elections scheduled for September.

Iran and Egypt have had no diplomatic ties since Iran's 1979 revolution because of Cairo's peace treaty with Israel, but the two governments cooperate on diplomatic affairs at a non-ambassador level.

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