RIGHTS-PALESTINE: Breakthrough Claimed at London Summit

By Sanjay Suri Reprint | | Print |

Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Jan 14 2003 (IPS) - A summit held in London Tuesday partly on video brought substantial advance towards a Palestinian homeland, participating leaders said.

Palestinian ministers barring their leader Yasser Arafat presented a list of significant reforms that the Palestinian Authority (PA) pledged to undertake. These reforms have been a significant Western demand in their talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in moving towards a resolution of the Palestine crisis.

The summit will "increase the momentum towards reform of the PA, and therefore improve the lives of the Palestinians," said British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw who chaired the meeting. "In doing so it will make an overall contribution to the peace process."

Palestinian representative to Britain Afif Safieh called the meeting a "major success". The meeting will "accelerate movement down the roadmap to peace," he said.

The meeting was attended by members of the Quartet, as it has come to be known, and by representatives of some Arab countries. The Quartet spearheading international efforts towards a resolution of the Palestine crisis comprises the United States, the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU) and Russia.

The U.S. was represented at the meeting Tuesday by William Burns, Assistant Secretary of State, the UN by Terje Larsen, Special Representative on the Middle East Peace Process, Russia by Andrei Vdovin, Special Envoy on the Middle East, and the EU by Javier Solana, Foreign Policy Representative.

George Papandreou, Foreign Minister of Greece, which now holds EU presidency addressed the meeting on telephone.

The meeting was also attended by Shaher Bak, Jordanian Deputy Foreign Minister, Dr Nizar Madani, Saudi Arabian Deputy Foreign Minister and Omar Sulaiman, Head of the Egyptian Intelligence Service.

Delegates later called on British Prime Minister Tony Blair at 10 Downing Street. "The Prime Minister made it clear that over the last two years an international consensus on a solution has emerged," Straw said.

That consensus had formed around the roadmap outlined by U.S. President George W. Bush last year, Straw said. Bush’s roadmap provides for the creation of an independent Palestinian state, but does not set a time frame for it.

That the conference was held at all was something of a British diplomatic achievement after Israeli Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu barred Palestinian ministers from travelling to London to attend the meeting. Six ministers from the PA and other Palestinian leaders contributed to the summit through video links from Ramallah and the West Bank.

The video link was "not a substitute for face to face talks, but we had to find a way around the problem," Straw said. It was "sensible and appropriate" to hold the conference despite the difficulties, Straw said.

Netanyahu’s move has "been shown to be counterproductive" because "the outcome today is good for the people of Israel as much as it is for the Palestinians," Straw said. "We are in favour of face to face contacts with leaders of the Palestinian Authority and their right to travel outside."

The Israeli response will be tested when PA leaders are invited to a follow-up meeting of the Quartet to take place in London February 10. The meeting has been called to force the pace on the Bush roadmap.

Palestinian leaders seemed determined to make diplomatic progress by pledging comprehensive reforms. "We received detailed papers on different reform decisions in advance," Straw said.

The reform programme covers political and constitutional reform, election reform, financial reforms, judicial reforms and progress in security.

Security is evidently a vital component of the reform package. "There was clear recognition that without credible Palestinian performance on security, the reform agenda will flounder," Straw said.

Straw pointed out that the PA has achieved some success with reforms already. "Significant economic reforms have improved the life of ordinary Palestinians, and respect for the Palestinian Authority in the international community," Straw said.

"That has whetted the appetite of the international community for as much progress as possible in other areas."

The PA, he said, has "prime responsibility to improve the security situation, and that is acknowledged," Straw said. "That they cannot do everything does not mean that they cannot do anything."

Palestinian representatives pointed out, however, that they do not see reforms or even a security crackdown within Palestinian areas as the prime cause of the impasse. "It is the territorial appetite of Israel that is the problem, not reforms," Safieh told media representatives.

The PA had wanted to hold elections on January 20 but they were called off because people are "caged in their cities, incapable of processing voter registration, forget campaigning."

Israeli opposition to reforms has been "monumental", Safieh said. Only a quarter of the required Palestinian leaders had been able to reach a meeting in Ramallah to vote on a draft constitution. The meeting was cancelled for lack of quorum, he said.

"And it is not terrorism that is the problem, it is territory that is the problem," Safieh said. "Terrorism is its result."

Palestinians, he said, had become the "Jews of the Israelis, and today a Palestinian state is not just the right of Palestinians but the duty of Jewish Israelis because they know the price we have paid for the birth of Israel."

Palestinians, he said, are being "unreasonably reasonable" in settling for a state on just 22 per cent of their land. Israel must recognise that "security and peace will come not from territorial aggrandisement but from regional acceptance – and we are the key to their regional acceptance."

Israeli withdrawal to pre-1967 positions in exchange for a recognition of the state of Israel by the whole Arab world, as proposed by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah at the Arab League summit in Beirut last year, "would be a reasonable solution to the crisis," Safieh said.

"If the territories could be occupied in six days, they can be vacated in six days, and the Israelis can rest on the seventh."