Omani Foreign Minister Yousuf bin Alawi said in an interview with Al Jazeera that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expressed his desire to visit the Sultanate to discuss the peace issue.
He added that Netanyahu asked the visit to present his point of view in resolving the differences in the region, and said that the negotiations are not stalled, and that the Palestinian and Israeli parties to reach a peace for the benefit of the parties.
The Omani minister said that the Sultanate of Oman does not play the role of mediator on issues in the region, but its role is to provide facilities for those who have the desire to reach an agreement, referring to the Palestinian issue and the Yemeni crisis.
At the end of Netanyahu's first visit to the Sultanate, the two sides issued a joint statement saying that the talks dealt with ways to advance the peace process in the Middle East and discussed a number of issues of common concern aimed at achieving peace and stability in the region.
The Omani news agency said that Sultan Qaboos met with Netanyahu on Thursday in the capital Muscat, noting that the two sides discussed ways to push the peace process in the Middle East.
On Monday, Sultan met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and discussed with him the stalled Palestinian-Israeli peace process since 2014.
| Netanyahu meets Sultan Qaboos in his first visit to the Sultanate (Anatolia) |
Extended connections
For his part, the Israeli Prime Minister's Office issued a statement announcing the return of Netanyahu Friday to Israel, without specifying when the meeting with the Sultan. The statement said Sultan Qaboos had invited Prime Minister Netanyahu and his wife to make the visit at the end of lengthy contacts between the two countries.
He added that Netanyahu had made an unannounced visit to the Sultanate of Oman, his first official visit to the Sultanate, which has no diplomatic relations with Israel.
The Prime Minister's visit to Muscat is a concrete step in the implementation of the Prime Minister's policy, which seeks to strengthen Israeli relations with the countries of the region by highlighting Israeli experience in the areas of security, technology and economy.
Netanyahu has spoken repeatedly in recent months about the growing ties between Israel and a number of Arab countries.
Mossad chief Yossi Cohen, the prime minister's adviser on national security, the head of the National Security Agency, Meir Ben-Shabat, Foreign Ministry Director-General Yuval Rotem, the Prime Minister's Office chief Yuval Horowitz and the military secretary of the prime minister, Brigadier General Avi Plut.
Netanyahu's visit is the first since Shimon Peres visited the Sultanate when he was acting prime minister in 1996. His predecessor, Yitzhak Rabin, visited Muscat two years earlier, according to statements by the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
In the same year that Peres visited Muscat, the two sides signed an agreement to open representative commercial offices, but the Sultanate closed Israeli offices weeks after the outbreak of the al-Aqsa intifada in 2000.