RIYADH Saudi King Fahd voiced his support Monday for an independent Palestinian state and said the Palestinian people were Saudi Arabia's top priority, AFP reported.
"The kingdom firmly supports Palestinian rights, chiefly the regaining of the city of Bait-ul-Moqaddas," Fahd told a weekly meeting of cabinet ministers, as quoted by the state news agency SPA.
"The Palestinian issue takes first place among the priorities of the Kingdom, which will continue to support the Palestinians until the establishment of their independent state with Bait-ul-Moqaddas as its capital," Fahd said.
Saudi Arabia, site of Islam's two holiest places Mecca and Medina , has long called on Israel to withdraw from east Bait-ul-Moqaddas, home to the faith's third holiest shrine, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, citing UN resolutions calling on the Zionist state to leave land it conquered in its 1967 war with its Arab neighbors.
Israel annexed the Eastern sector shortly after it captured it in the June 1967 war, and proclaimed the entire city its undivided and eternal capital, a move not recognized by the international community.
Indonesian Foreign Minister, Alwi Shihab, on Tuesday also expressed support for an independent Palestinian state.
"We support it (Palestinian independence) just like we support any other country's independence," Shihab told journalists at the presidential office. "This has always been our stance and they (the Palestinians) know it," he added.
"If they decide to declare it (independent state), we will naturally support it," he said.
He added that he planned to travel to the Middle East later this month with a message from President Abdurrahman Wahid.
Shihab said he would meet Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Jordan's King Abdullah II and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during his visit.
(AFP)