Jordan Times
Thursday, April 22, 2004
FM to hold talks in Paris with French counterpart
AMMAN (AFP) — Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher is
to hold talks on Friday in Paris with his French counterpart Michel Barnier on
Iraq and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, a government official told AFP.
Muasher will fly to Paris today from Washington where he held talks with
Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Talks between Muasher and Barnier will focus “on the need to ensure that a
unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip is part and parcel of the
roadmap and not a substitute for this peace blueprint,” the official said.
Jordan has urged the European Union, one of the four sponsors of the roadmap
along with Russia, the United Nations and the United States, to help implement
the roadmap after US President George Bush endorsed the Israeli separation plan
earlier this month.
The controversial Israeli plan calls for a unilateral disengagement from the
Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank. It has angered Arab leaders who want a
solution based on the roadmap.
Bush also infuriated the Arab world by formally supporting Israel's insistence
there can be no return of Palestinian refugees to homes they left at the
creation of the Jewish state in 1948.
The European Union also insists on the roadmap solution and rejects any change
to the pre-1967 borders other than those reached in negotiations between the
parties. Muasher and Barnier will also discuss the “dangerous” situation in
Iraq, amid warnings by Jordan that a civil war could break out in its eastern
neighbour, the official said.