HIGHLIGHTS: Key Arab Ministers Support Quartet Plan to Move from Violence to Peace in the Middle East||A Benchmark Is Needed to Monitor  Progress to Ensure that Political Visions Are Translated into "A Workable Plan of Action"||Assad Attacks U.S. Policy Toward Israel||STORY: Despite differences with the United States over the future of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, key Arab ministers are strongly supporting a comprehensive plan to achieve Palestinian statehood within three years.(Read photo caption)

Foreign ministers Ahmed Maher of Egypt and Marwan Muasher of Jordan gave strong backing Tuesday to a three-track plan supported by the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia to move from violence to peace in the Middle East.

The two Arab ministers together with Saudi Arabia's U.N. Ambassador Fawzi Shobokshi and top U.S., U.N., EU and Russian officials appear to have made "good progress" on a plan to move toward the end of Israel's occupation and achieving the vision of two states, Palestine and Israel, living side by side in peace.

The three Arab representatives joined U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Secretary of State Colin Powell at a news conference in the garden of Annan's residence after the meeting.

Jordan's Muasher said the plan will take the region through a series of stages - going through Palestinian reform and security definitely, but also starting a political process to give hope for Palestinians that they will witness the end of the occupation."
The international community must now agree on benchmarks to monitor progress to ensure that the political visions are translated into "a workable plan of action," he said. "And after the meetings today I'm encouraged that we are well on our way to do that."

ASSAD ATTACKS U.S. POLICY TOWARD ISRAEL

Syria wants peace in the Middle East to start with Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab lands, not with the division of nations into the "axis of evil and the axis of good," President Bashar Assad told a visiting North Korean delegation.

Assad said during a state dinner that Syria and North Korea, which US President George W. Bush labeled part of an "axis of evil" threatening world peace, must take "firm stands" to express their rights in realizing peace and defending their countries.
Assad was addressing Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly who is leading the delegation. 

Without mentioning the United States directly, he said the world today suffered from a tyranny that stems from the conceit of power.

Kim Yong Nam arrived in Syria on Tuesday accompanied by a high-level delegation, including Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun and Foreign Trade Minister Ri Kwang Gun. He has already visited Indonesia and Libya in a bid to foster bilateral relations.

PHOTO CAPTION

Marwan Muasher, right, foreign minister of Jordan, and Kofi Annan, secretary general of the United Nations, appear at a press conference in New York Tuesday, July 16, 2002. Both men have expressed suport for a U.S. proposed three-year "action plan" of help for the Palestinians, but have opposed the Bush administration attitude toward Yasser Arafat. (AP Photo/Mark Lenniha