The French foreign minister says major world powers intend present a set of incentives and guarantees to encourage Israelis and Palestinians to revive stalled peace talks.
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Mogherini called called on Israel, the Palestinians -who were not invited to conference- and the worldwide community to redouble efforts to revive the Middle East Peace Process.
“We’re not bringing any specific proposals to this meeting tomorrow”, a senior State Department official was quoted as saying.
After a delay of some two hours with the delegates from the 29 countries and worldwide organizations trying to come to a consensus statement, a joint rather bland communique was issued with the participants reaffirming their “support for a just, lasting and comprehensive resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”.
– NINE MONTHS from July 29, 2013: US Secretary of State John Kerry announces the launch of nine months of direct talks, the first in three years. “We hope that wisdom will prevail in Israel and that they accept this initiative”.
Its initial focus is to reaffirm existing global texts and resolutions that are based on achieving a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip co-existing with Israel.
The joint statement highlighted the threat to the two-state solution model, pointing to “actions on the ground, in particular continued acts of violence and ongoing settlement activity” that are “dangerously imperiling the prospects for a two-state solution”.
Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East War and has been controlling it ever since despite worldwide condemnation.
Israel on the other hand called the meeting a missed opportunity and said that the initiative would go down in history as having “distanced the chances of peace”.
“If the worldwide community comes together and says the two-state solution is the only option, that is important in itself — after years of people talking about the two-state solution being dead”.
The worldwide peace conference on the Middle East settlement initiated by France began in Paris on Friday morning with delegates from 26 countries, as well as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, chief of European diplomacy Federica Mogherini and a delegate from the League of Arab States taking part.
Asked if he would support an global conference later this year with the Israelis and Palestinians attending, Kerry told reporters: “We’re just starting, let’s get into the conversations”. In 2012, the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly recognized a state of Palestine in these boundaries, though setting up an actual state would requires a deal with Israel.
It warned that “the status quo was not sustainable”.
Netanyahu is defiantly opposed to the French initiative.
In an interview with Israel’s Channel 2, sections of which aired Thursday, Bennett said his party is the only one committed to opposing a Palestinian state, and that as long as his party is in the governing coalition, “a Palestinian state will not be established … and Jerusalem will not be divided”.
Prior to the talks the Israeli government rejected the French peace initiative, instead inviting Palestinian Preisdent Mahmoud Abbas for one-on-one talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “We do not want to replace the sides or impose solutions on them”.
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“We were expecting timelines for the negotiations”, he said, also lamenting the lack of demand to halt settlements. The Palestinians, along with much of the global community, have accused Netanyahu of undermining peace talks by continued construction in east Yerushalayim and in the Jewish communities in Yehudah and Shomron.
