Jordan Times
Thursday, April 12, 2007
King meets with Chirac,
urges EU support for Arab peace plan
Abbas, Olmert to start US-arranged talks
Agencies
KING ABDULLAH ON Wednesday urged the EU,
including France, to support the Arab Peace Initiative, which, he said, should
be the basis for resuming Palestinian-Israeli negotiations.
The King told French President Jacques Chirac at a meeting in Paris that the
international community should help build trust between the two sides to revive
the peace process, leading to the establishment of an independent Palestinian
state, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.
The King, who was in France on a short visit, told Agence France-Presse on
Wednesday that Israelis should accept the Arab Peace Initiative, which “reflects
collective Arab will to build peace that puts an end to years of violence and
suffering”.
Last month, Arab leaders revived their five-year-old peace plan that offers
Israel normal ties with all Arab states in return for a full withdrawal from the
land it captured in the 1967 Middle East war, the creation of a Palestinian
state and a “just solution” for Palestinian refugees.
Israel rejected the plan when it was first adopted in 2002, but has now said it
could serve as a basis for talks provided there were changes on the refugee
issue, something the Arab leaders rejected.
Chirac, for his part, said France backs peace efforts in the Middle East in line
with an internationally accepted two-state solution.
US-arranged talks
Meanwhile, Israel said yesterday Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will meet on Sunday
with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas under a US-brokered deal but Israel
made clear the focus would not be on steps towards a Palestinian state as Abbas
hoped, according to Reuters.
The fate of captured Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit, seized by Gaza fighters 10
months ago, is expected to dominate the talks after Israel rebuffed a list of
about 1,400 Palestinian prisoners that Hamas wants released as part of a swap.
Israeli officials said they objected because the list was stacked with fighters
deemed to have “blood on their hands” from deadly attacks against Israelis.
But Olmert stopped short of rejecting the list outright and the government said
it wanted to continue negotiations through Egyptian mediators.
Hamas also signalled a willingness to continue negotiations but said they would
be “doomed to fail” if Israel insisted that some fighters be excluded.
Sunday’s talks will be the first between Olmert and Abbas since they agreed
during a visit to the region last month by US Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice to meet once every two weeks.
At the meeting, Abbas hopes to begin talks about the outlines of a future
Palestinian state. But Olmert’s office said the discussions would focus on
humanitarian and security issues.
Olmert has said Abbas’ power-sharing partnership with Hamas and Shalit’s
captivity meant no real progress towards Palestinian statehood could be made in
their meetings.
The Palestinians proposed holding the talks in the West Bank city of Jericho but
it was unclear if Israel would agree. They last met in Jerusalem on March 11.
Cabinet approval
“It is patently clear that these will be tough and complicated negotiations,”
Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz said of the prisoner list submitted by
Hamas.
Olmert held his first discussions about the list on Tuesday with Peretz and his
top security advisers. Israeli ministers at the meeting expressed
“disappointment and reservation” about the list, the prime minister’s office
said.
Israel is looking into whether to loosen criteria for releasing prisoners. Any
changes would need cabinet approval, a process that could take weeks.
“This proves that Israel is not interested in achieving a compromise over the
release of prisoners,” Palestinian cabinet spokesman Ghazi Hamad said of the
initial Israeli reaction.
He said a deal was “doomed to fail” if Israel demanded that fighters with “blood
on their hands” be dropped from the list.
“The Palestinians will not revise the list based on Israeli criteria,” Hamad
said, but he added changes were still a possibility. “If there are issues that
[need] more negotiations, then things are not over yet.” It was not immediately
clear whether Hamas might agree on its own, or due to Egyptian pressure, to
remove names from the list to facilitate a deal.
Hamas cabinet minister Wasfi Kabha said on Monday that the some 1,400 names on
the list included Marwan Barghouthi, a Fateh leader widely regarded as a
possible successor to moderate President Mahmoud Abbas.
A deal on Shalit, after months of deadlock, could be key to any progress in
talks between Olmert and Abbas. Abbas is pushing for Olmert to hold talks based
on an Arab land-for-peace initiative but Olmert has been reluctant to commit.
Shalit was captured last June by fighters from Hamas and two other armed groups
who tunnelled into Israel from Gaza.