EU FOREIGN policy chief Catherine Ashton withheld judgment over the Israeli inquiry into the Gaza flotilla affair yesterday amid signs Israel may ease its three-year blockade of the territory.
As Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin said the Israeli inquiry was not to his satisfaction, Baroness Ashton last night stopped well short of endorsing the plan but said she had not had time to examine it in detail.
She was speaking at the end of a day-long meeting of EU foreign ministers at which Middle East envoy Tony Blair said Israel had agreed in principle to easing the three-year blockade “in days”.
Following talks with Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Mr Blair reported a willingness to allow the entry of more goods into the territory: “In respect of the closure policy, I hope very much in the next days we will get the in-principle commitment that we require, but then also steps beginning to be taken.”
Baroness Ashton said it was “now possible” to see the introduction of a list of items banned from Gaza on security grounds. This would ease the current regime, which operates on the basis of an “allowed list” of about 116 items.
The opening of crossings to let in goods and people was also on the cards, she said. On the inquiry, she said the critical question was whether it was credible.
“Will this inquiry be able to come up with a credible response that will enable people to understand what happened on that day and we find ourselves in a position where nine people are dead?”
Former Northern Ireland first minister David Trimble is one of two non-voting foreign observers to participate in the inquiry. Mr Trimble is involved with the Friends of Israel group, set up last month to counter attempts to “delegitimise” the Jewish state.
Although EU ministers called for a full and impartial inquiry with “credible international participation”, Mr Martin said they had yet to take a position on the Israeli plan. Without naming any of his counterparts, he said “other people in the EU may have different perspectives”.
“The EU needs to be careful that it supports the primacy of the UN and that it doesn’t do anything that in any way indirectly may suggest some inadequacy in terms of the UN being in a position to conduct an inquiry of this kind,” he said. Asked about Mr Trimble’s involvement, Mr Martin said the Government worked well with him in the past and that he had kept his side of agreements with honour.
“From our perspective, it’s not about personalities, it’s about structure. It’s about the aegis under which the inquiry is held, who leads the inquiry, the structure of that inquiry and the degree of worldwide acceptability that such an inquiry would have, that’s the key.”
Mr Martin said the Government supported EU moves to impose new sanctions on Iran over its nuclear policy, penalties that will go further than the resolution adopted last week by the UN security council.