DUBAI, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Both Arabs and Israelis need to progress on the peace front, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said.
Addressing the Ideas Abu Dhabi conference, held on March 27-28, Gargash on Wednesday called for "more stable regional system" that would allow Middle East nations to resolve problems such as the Israel-Palestine conflict, the National online reported on Thursday.
The minister said decisions of many Arab countries not to talk with Israel had complicated finding a solution over the decades.
"Many, many years ago, when there was an Arab decision not to have contact with Israel, that was a very, very wrong decision, looking back. Because clearly, you have to really dissect and divide between having a political issue and keeping your lines of communication open," he said.
"The strategic shirt, needs actually, for us to progress on the peace front," he said, adding "what we are facing, if we continue on the current trajectory, I think the conversation in 15 years' time will really be about equal rights in one state."
"From the perspective of the UAE, we do need to resolve it, because this issue has this tendency of jumping out of the background when it's quite to suddenly becoming headline news," Gargash said.
Relations between Arab states and Israel need to shift to help progress towards peace, he concluded.
