The Sharm el-Sheikh and Aqaba summits held last week between U.S. President George W. Bush and certain Arab leaders failed to make progress on the Washington-inspired "roadmap" to Middle East peace.

This was largely because Bush urged the Arab leaders to recognize Israel in the final summit statement and voice readiness to establish diplomatic and economic relations with that regime.

However, only Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah protested against the U.S. pressure, stressing that normalizing relations with Israel would only be actualized after the complete withdrawal of all Israeli forces from the occupied territories.

He said he was opposed to Arab states normalizing ties with Israel before the issues of Palestine, Bait-ul-Moqaddas, and the Palestinian refugees were completely resolved.

This frustrated Bush's efforts to get a guarantee from Arab leaders to enter a peace deal with Israel.

In his Middle East trip, the U.S. president was in fact trying to obtain certain concessions in favor of the Zionist regime in order to use those concessions in his re-election campaign in 2004.

The U.S. refused to invite the Syrian and Lebanese leaders as well as the secretary general of the Arab League to the Sharm el-Sheikh summit.

Therefore, this was one of the main reasons for the failure of the summit, considering the fact that these officials definitely could have thrown their weight behind the "roadmap" initiative.

The Aqaba summit, attended by Bush, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas, Crown Prince Abdullah, and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, was initially dedicated to exchanging vague statements instead of discussing the Palestinian crisis.

Meanwhile, Abbas said he was committed to disarming Palestinian resistance movements and to reining in the Intifada (uprising).

However, his remarks immediately provoked sharp reaction among militants, who said they would stop their talks with Abbas and would under no circumstances ever turn in their arms before a comprehensive resolution of the Palestinian crisis.

Also, 11 Israeli ministers have announced that they are opposed to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and have threatened to quit the government if talks in that connection continue.

This shows that any plan to press ahead with the Middle East peace process, including the roadmap, will fail to make a breakthrough if it lacks an international guarantee from all parties involved that it will be implemented.

Therefore, the only solution to the Palestinian issue is the full implementation of UN Security Council resolutions as well as dispatching a UN mission to the occupied territories to supervise the withdrawal of Israeli troops from all the occupied territories, including the Golan Heights of Syria and the Shebaa Farms of Lebanon.