Arab leaders meeting here yesterday pledged their continued support of the Middle East peace process, Siona Jenkins writes from Cairo. They urged Israel to act in the "spirit of peace" and make good on the promises it has made to its Arab neighbours. After three hours of talks to co-ordinate their positions in advance of the US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright's first visit to the region later this week, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, King Hussein of Jordan and the Palestinian leader, Mr Yasser Arafat, issued a joint statement calling on Israel to refrain from settlement building, confiscation of Palestinian land, collective punishment and actions related to the status of Jerusalem which are outside the final status negotiations.
The three leaders also condemned acts of terrorism and violence, "regardless of their motives or source. They see them as an attempt by a few from the Arab and Israeli sides to obstruct the peace process", the statement said. But the meeting - which Egyptian state television described as an attempt at saving the Middle East peace process - offered little to relieve the increasingly bleak prospects for peace in the wake of last week's suicide bombing in Jerusalem, which killed seven people and wounded 192.
Egypt and the Palestinians have blamed the policies of the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, for the breakdown of the peace process, and the statement reminded the Israeli leader that he is late in implementing re-deployment, the second stage of which was due yesterday.
It also urged the "implementation of the interim agreement in all its clauses and the resumption of negotiations on final status as soon as possible". Under the Oslo interim accord, Israel must return parts of Gaza and the West Bank and is due to withdraw its troops from other areas of the West Bank by the middle of next year.
But Israel is in no mood to implement the accords. After last week's attack, Mr Netanyahu pledged that he would not hand over any more land to the Palestinians until they cracked town on terrorism.
This prompted a swift reaction from the Palestinian Authority, which described it as "an official declaration of destroying the peace process".
Ms Albright steps into a downward spiral later this week. Although no major breakthroughs are expected during her visit, there is hope that as one of the sponsors of the 1991 Madrid peace conference, the United States can revive the peace process.
And while yesterday's meeting allowed the three Arab leaders to co-ordinate their policies in advance of meeting the Secretary of State, they gave little indication of what their strategy will be.