Almotamar.net - In his opening address of the Arab Summit in Damascus Saturday Syrian president Bashar al-Assad welcomed Yemen's initiative for Palestinian reconciliation and dialogue, " We express out our appreciation of efforts of the brothers in Yemen and our support for the Yemeni initiative for resuming the Palestinian dialogue and we view it as convenient framework for agreement between the Palestinian parties."

Al-Assad also said ," Holding this summit in Syria at this critical stage is an honour and big responsibility we are proud of out of out belief in the importance and vitality of the Arab joint action for our Arab nation that looks forward to taking its proper position in the world of today."

On his part the Arab League Secretary General Amru Mussa expressed support of the Arab League for the Yemeni efforts and for President Ali Abdullah Saleh personally with regards to achieving the Palestinian national reconciliation in confirmation of unity of the Palestinian homeland as land, people and one authority. He added that," Division of the Palestinian situation must end and we have reached to a turning point where we have to put the Yemeni initiative into force and also activate the dialogue it has called for."

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas clarified in his address to the summit and his talk about the Palestinian internal situation by saying," We have responded to all good initiatives on basis of the decisions adopted by the Arab League council and the latest of which has been the initiative proposed by president Ali Abdullah Saleh of we announced acceptance of the Palestine Liberation Organisation to implement its articles immediately without any change or amendment and in this context we repeat our demand from Hamas movement to back down from the coup and accept commitments the PLO has accepted and to go to early presidential and parliamentary elections."

On his part the Saudi foreign minister prince Saud al-Faisal praised the Yemeni initiative for healing the rift between the movements of Fatah and Hamas, expressing the hope that Damascus would adopt the Yemeni initiative to become an Arab initiative.

In response to a question by Saba news agency at a press conference al-Faisal held in Riyadh on Saturday the Saudi minister hoped that Damascus summit would adopt the initiative. He praised the efforts that Yemen exerted in gathering the Palestinians but it cannot carry out their duty, the Palestinians have to take care of their interests and to believe that their division is useless and it wastes their interests and they have to reconcile.