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U.S. Names Fact-Finding Commission To Probe Middle East Violence
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States on Tuesday named members of an international fact-finding panel to investigate ongoing deadly Middle East violence as Israeli and Palestinian leaders prepared to visit Washington for peace talks.
Former U.S. senator George Mitchell, who served as mediator in Northern Ireland peace talks, will preside over the five-strong panel that Israel and the Palestinians agreed to at last month's emergency Sharm el-Sheikh summit, the White House said in a statement.
The other panel members are former U.S. senator Warren Rudman; Turkish former president Suleyman Demirel; European Union foreign and security policy chief Javier Solana; and Norwegian Foreign Minister Thorbjorn Jagland, it said.
The members, described as representing "the best tradition in public service both at home and abroad" are charged with working with Israel and the Palestinians to probe the causes of the current violence that has wracked the region killing more than 180 people over the past six weeks.
The Palestinians say the violence began on September 28 following a controversial high-profile visit to a holy Muslim site in Jerusalem by hawkish Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon.
Israel, meanwhile, maintains that the clashes began well before the visit and were instigated to try to force it into further concessions in the peace process.
The panel created Tuesday "will provide an independent and objective review of the current crisis with the goal of preventing its recurrence," the White House said, stressing that for it to succeed both Israel and the Palestinians must fully implement the understandings reached at the summit.
"In order for the committee to carry out its mission, the two sides must be making a serious and good faith effort to implement the commitments they undertook at Sharm el-Sheikh to assure that the violence subsides," it said.
In addition to the creation of the committee, the membership of which was proposed by the two sides and vetted by Clinton and U.N. chief Kofi Annan, Israel and the Palestinians agreed at Sharm el-Sheikh to publicly renounce violence and take concrete steps to reduce tension in the region.
The naming of the committee came just two days ahead of planned talks at the White House between Clinton and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and five days ahead of similar talks set for the U.S. president and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
Clinton, who will meet with Arafat on Thursday and Barak on Sunday, is pressing the two leaders on the importance of implementing the Sharm el-Sheikh agreements and restarting the peace process that has virtually collapsed since the failure of the Camp David summit in July.
"The immediate priority [of the talks] must be to implement all of the provisions of the Sharm el-Sheikh agreement, particularly those aimed at stopping the violence and the bloodshed," the White House said.
"Beyond that, President Clinton will discuss with the two leaders how best to move forward and resume a political dialogue."
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