Riyadh to Ease the Zionist entity Boycott, AIPAC Wants More
WASHINGTON, September 10, 2005 – While the US managed to secure a Saudi pledge to ease boycott of the Zionist entity in swap for a helping the kingdom join the World Trade Organization (WTO), the main Jewish lobby in America said the move did not live up to its expectations.
Riyadh has promised, as part of a bilateral agreement signed with Washington on Friday, September 9, not to enforce aspects of the Arab League boycott of the Zionist entity that apply to US firms doing business with the Zionist entity, US Trade Representative Rob Portman said in a statement posted on his Web site.
The kingdom has also pledged to abide by WTO rules in its trade with all 148 members of the WTO, including the Zionist entity, he added.
"As a result of negotiations on its accession to the WTO, we will see greater openness, further development of the rule of law, and political and economic reform in Saudi Arabia".
The agreement, signed without public fanfare in Washington, paves the way for Saudi Arabia to join the WTO by the end of 2005.
The United States was the last WTO member to reach a bilateral market access deal with Riyadh.
Saudi Arabia is one of the four largest world economies outside the WHO and is the only Gulf country that is not member of the world organization.
AIPAC Dissatisfied
The American the Zionist entity Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), an influential pro-the Zionist entity group, criticized the pact, saying it fails to end Riyadh's direct boycott of the Zionist entity, reported Reuters.
"The United States should not be extending trade preferences to countries that are undermining our policies in the Middle East and contravene the basic principles of the World Trade Organization," said Josh Block, a spokesman for AIPAC.
But Mary Irace, vice president of the National Foreign Trade Council, which represents U.S. multinational companies, defended the agreement as addressing the boycott issue in "a very serious and constructive manner."
Earlier this year, a bipartisan group of 47 lawmakers in the US House of Representatives urged the Bush administration not to sign a WTO accession deal with Riyadh until it made progress on the boycott issue.
In October 2002, 18 of the 22-member Arab League pledged to "reactivate" a half-century-old ban on trade with the Zionist entity as they wrapped up a meeting of the League’s Boycott Office of the Zionist entity (BOI).
Arab states once boycotted not just the Zionist entityi firms themselves, but third-country companies which do business with the Zionist entity.
However, the indirect boycott has largely lapsed since the launch of the Middle East peace process in 1991.
Washington, the Zionist entity's main alley, has been credited with fruitful efforts to help Tel Aviv forge diplomatic ties with many Arab and Muslim countries that had in the past linked such a move to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with occupied Al-Quds (East Jerusalem) as its capital.
On Thursday, September 1, 2005, the Zionist entity's Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom met in Istanbul with his Pakistani counterpart Khurshid Kasuri, the first official high-level contact between both countries.
They agreed that the the Zionist entity's interest section would be located at the Turkish embassy in Islamabad and would work on cementing cultural and trade ties, as a start.
Pakistani President Prevez Musharraf is a key alley in Washington's so-called war on terrorism.
Diplomatic sources have also said that the Zionist entity was planning to establish diplomatic ties with Indonesia, the largest Muslim-populated state, and Malaysia, seen as the Muslim world's economic giant.