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EU Breaks With
Washington, Touts Own Mideast Peace Initiative
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EU
foreign ministers say UN recognized Palestinian state a must for peace |
WASHINGTON,
Feb. 10 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - At a meeting in Carcares, Spain,
foreign ministers of the European Union (EU) announced that they were endorsing
a French blueprint for bringing peace to the Middle East.
The
French plan calls for Palestinian elections, and the creation of a Palestinian
state to be "immediately" recognized by Israel and admitted to the
United Nations. The plan breaks ranks with the Washington, whose “hands off”
approach is perceived by many European leaders as closely aligned with the
government of Israel's hardline Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
French
Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine told his EU colleagues that the creation of such
a Palestinian state must be the "starting point of a negotiating
process" for a Mideast peace accord.
Vedrine
spelled out this sequence of events without detailing a timeline: Palestinian
elections "to support the Palestinian Authority's popular legitimacy in its
efforts to crackdown" on extremists. These could be general elections or a
vote for a legislative council that would prepare for presidential elections
once a Palestinian state has been proclaimed.
The
elections, added the French foreign minister, will require Israel to pull its
security forces from Palestinian territories and recognize the new state that
would also immediately be made a UN member.
The
Palestinian state and Israel would sign "a declaration of
non-belligerency", and then sign a peace accord based on United Nations
Security Council resolutions recognizing the right of both Israel and the
Palestinians to live in safe and secure borders.
"After
one year of obsession with security we see now where we are," said Vedrine.
"For months it has been a question of getting away from violence – [but]
they are deadlocked," he told reporters. "The Palestinians have the
right to another way of expressing themselves other than through suicide."
Spanish
Foreign Minister Josep Pique, the meeting's chairman, said the plan would be
developed further in talks among the 15 EU foreign ministers and at a mid-March
European summit in Barcelona.
Pique
said the Europeans resent the prevailing view in Washington and Jerusalem that
no peace talks can start until a lasting ceasefire takes hold. That fixation on
security matters at the expense of political initiatives has created an impasse,
he said.
"There
does not seem to be a way out of the deadlock," he told a press conference
after the two-day EU foreign ministers meeting. "We need to find a way to
get out of this endless spiral of violence."
The
Spaniard also made it clear that he and other EU officials did not seek to push
the United States from the driver's seat of Middle East peace efforts.
Yet
they expressed concern that Washington has distanced itself from Yasser Arafat
by accusing the Palestinian leader of failing to contain so-called extremists.
Pique
took aim at Israel's isolation of Arafat, who has been confined by the Israeli
army to his West Bank headquarters since early December, 2001. "You can't
ask him to make 100 percent effort, but at the same time limit and weaken his
freedom of movement," he said. "We should not concentrate solely and
exclusively on security. We should advance toward the search for a political
solution which cannot be accompanied by 100 percent of absolute security."
U.S.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Friday that U.S. and
international efforts should continue "to keep the focus right now on the
need for Chairman Arafat to take steps against the violence."
Concerning
the EU ideas, Boucher said, "introducing other elements that divert the
attention from this focus doesn't really move the situation forward."
The
Europeans have in the past come out in favor of a Palestinian state, to the
dismay of Israel. Their push for Palestinian elections, a Palestinian state,
Israel's recognition of such an entity on its doorstep and the new state's quick
admittance as a UN member was unprecedented.
On
Saturday, EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten said the United States
appeared to be taking a simplistic approach to the rest of the world. In an
interview with The Guardian, he said branding Iraq, Iran and North Korea, an
"axis of evil," as Bush has, was "deeply unhelpful."
On
Friday, French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin expressed concern that proposed
increases in U.S. defense spending suggest an increasing emphasis on military
means. "We can't reduce all the world's problems to the ... fight against
terrorism," Jospin said.
German
Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer agreed. "We need to fight against
terrorism with determination," he told reporters here. "But we must
also look at the social and economic roots of that problem. We need to have a
new political initiative."
German
sources said Berlin would also like to see a Palestinian referendum on a
resumption of peace talks. Javier Solana, the EU's chief foreign and security
chief, said there could be no peace in the Middle East without putting
"politics back at the center of gravity."
The
EU will take its new ideas for Mideast peace to a two-day conference of Islamic
nations opening in Istanbul Monday.
British
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said he and Fischer would travel separately to the
Middle East next week to assess the situation.
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