Jordan Times
Sunday, April 1, 2007
King holds talks with Merkel, EU welcomes Arab
peace plan
By Alia Shukri Hamzeh in Aqaba
with agency dispatches
King Abdullah held talks in Aqaba with German Chancellor Angela Merkel amid new
momentum to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
“During our meeting, the chancellor and I spoke first and foremost about the
need to build on the momentum of the Arab summit to move the Arab Peace
Initiative forward and bring peace, stability and security to the people of the
region,” King Abdullah told reporters at a joint press conference with Merkel.
“Jordan looks forward to working closely with you and our European partners, to
advance the initiative as an ideal framework for political negotiations between
Arabs and Israelis.”
European Union foreign ministers on Saturday hailed the Arab Peace Initiative
and agreed to engage with non-Hamas members of the new Palestinian national
unity government.
The EU voiced full support for the plan revived at the Arab summit in Riyadh
last week, offering Israel peace and relations in exchange for complete
withdrawal from Arab land occupied in 1967 and a solution to the Palestinian
refugee problem.
“The Arab Peace Initiative reaffirms the Arab people's desire and will to live
in a peaceful Middle East with Israel. The initiative is also able to achieve a
comprehensive settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict, beginning with the
creation of a sovereign, viable and independent Palestine living side-by-side
with a secure Israel,” the King said.
Merkel, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, was in Aqaba at the
start of a Middle East tour aimed at adding a European dimension to the Arab
initiative. She was to travel on to Israel, Lebanon and the Palestinian
territories.
Yesterday, the German chancellor urged the new Palestinian unity government to
embrace Western demands that it recognise Israel and renounce violence to revive
Middle East peace talks.
"We call on the members of the unity government to adhere to the Quartet
principles... to bring forward the peace process," she was quoted as saying at
the press conference.
The Quartet of Middle East peace negotiators — Russia, the United Nations, the
European Union and the United States — called for those two conditions and the
acceptance of existing peace accords.
"We want to support those forces that abide by the Quartet principles," she
said.
The EU ministers yesterday said they would seek ways of redirecting aid to the
Palestinian Authority towards institution-building and economic development in
talks with Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayyad.
But they warned against expecting an overnight resumption of direct assistance
to the Palestinian Authority.
"The Arab peace initiative and also the somewhat positive reaction from
[Israeli] Prime Minister [Ehud] Olmert are very good things," European External
Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner told reporters.
"The international community should not lose that opportunity [for peace]. We
have already lost many opportunities," Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel
Moratinos told reporters after the EU ministers discussed the Middle East.
The 27-nation EU boycotted the Hamas-led government formed last year because it
refused to recognise Israel, renounce violence or accept past peace accords.
The unity government formed last month between President Mahmoud Abbas' moderate
nationalist Fateh Party and Hamas agreed to respect past agreements, but Hamas
insisted it would not recognise the Jewish state or renounce armed resistance.
"We have a pragmatic position to deal with all interlocutors that are not
members of Hamas," Moratinos said, mentioning the Palestinian finance, interior
and foreign ministers.
Ferrero-Waldner has invited Fayyad, a respected independent technocrat, to
Brussels on April 11 to discuss ways of channelling aid to the Palestinians.