Spanish Foreign Minister calls for return to peace talks following meeting with Mubarak
JERUSALEM: Israel on Monday dismissed an Egyptian call to fix a border for a Palestinian state before resolving other issues, saying the sides should first take confidence-building measures under a U.S.-backed plan. There are no magical quick fixes, Mark Regev, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said of Egypt s proposal to bypass some requirements of a 2003 road map that has so far brought few results. Negotiations on Palestinian statehood collapsed in 2000 after the failure to agree on an eventual border. A Palestinian uprising began soon after the talks failed. Explaining Egypt s proposal, Foreign Minister Abul-Gheit said in Cairo on Sunday that: If we agree on a Palestinian state, its borders and its parameters, then we can deal from there, through negotiations, to try and achieve this aim. The Egyptian idea is similar to a concept proposed by King Abdullah of Jordan. Regev said Israel wanted to reengage with the Palestinians and that both Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have announced a readiness to hold their first summit. But Israel wants to stick to the road map, which calls first for confidence building steps by both sides.
Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos on Sunday urged Israel and the Palestinians to return to peace talks, following talks in Cairo with President Hosni Mubarak. Joint efforts must be made for the return of the Israeli and Palestinian parties to the negotiating table, Moratinos told reporters, adding he hoped his Middle East tour would contribute to achieving this goal.
Moratinos, who is also to visit Israel, the Palestinian territories and Lebanon, spoke after talks with Mubarak who had earlier urged a hasty return to peace talks following a meeting in Amman with Jordan s King Abdullah II. Spain s parliament on Thursday authorized the deployment of up to 1,00 troops to southern Lebanon as part of a bolstered UN Interim Force in Lebanon deployment. That would make Spain the third largest contributor of troops after Italy and France. Moratinos said it was important to agree on a comprehensive and thoroughly studied initiative to assure stability in the Middle East and said talks to be held at the United Nations should create a favorable atmosphere. He was referring to an Arab League decision last week to call for a new mechanism for relaunching the peace process through the United Nations, an idea that Moratinos backed. I support this initiative and I think that a return to the UN Security Council is a good idea for peace and security in the world, he said. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit, whom Moratinos also met, said Arab states were not demanding a (new) international peace conference but want the Security Council to come together to examine ways to relaunch the peace process.
The stalled roadmap to peace — backed by the United Nations, United States, Russia and European Union — lacks (precisions) on ways to establish a Palestinian state and on its (future) borders , he said. He added that everyone must work toward the realization of the true goal of the peace process, which is to establish a Palestinian state . Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas have both expressed willingness to meet without preconditions, though no date for a meeting has yet been set. Neither side has carried out commitments under the first phases of the plan. Israel has not frozen settlement building in the occupied West Bank, and the Palestinians have failed to start disarming militants. Chances for talks dimmed further after Hamas Islamists took over the Palestinian government in March. Hamas, whose charter calls for Israel s destruction, is under a U.S.-led aid embargo to try to force it to recognize Israel and renounce violence. Agencies
