ISRAELI FOREIGN minister Avigdor Lieberman has termed European Union peace efforts “naive”, as the Ha’aretz newspaper reported a new European initiative to get Middle East peace talks back on track.
According to Ha’aretz, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton sent a letter to the other three representatives of the Middle East quartet – the US, Russia and the United Nations – requesting an urgent meeting to express support for the renewal of negotiations based on the formula outlined by US president Barack Obama.
Mr Obama last month called for the resumption of bilateral negotiations based on an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines, but with agreed land swaps. Under such a formula, Israel would be able to keep control of large blocs of Jewish settlements in the West Bank in return for a future Palestinian state adding territory currently part of Israel.
The Palestinians accepted in principle a French proposal to host a conference based on the Obama framework in an effort to kick-start the peace talks. Israel has still to formally respond.
Ms Ashton wrote that the dramatic events across the Arab world made finding a lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict even more urgent. “Unfortunately, we have not seen any progress on that front,” she wrote.
But Mr Lieberman said the attempt to prioritise the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was naive.
In an interview with Israel army radio, he suggested that the international community should concentrate on trying to solve the problems in Syria and Yemen, or even Iran, Pakistan and Sudan.
“We are familiar with a lot of initiatives, and not just from today,” he said.
“There is a French initiative and a plan for a conference in Moscow, but when I speak to my colleagues I tell them, ‘you are trying to take the Palestinian issue and alter the natural agenda in the Middle East’.”
After talks with visiting German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle, Mr Lieberman urged European states to immediately withdraw their ambassadors from Syria, saying President Bashar Assad should “step down as soon as possible, even without a UN security council resolution”.
Germany, along with the US and Italy, opposes the Palestinian plan to seek UN recognition in September for an independent state. Mr Westerwelle warned unilateral moves may be counterproductive.
“Steps in the UN only widen the gaps between the parties and are counterproductive. Our position is clear: the two-state solution must be based on negotiations.” He said that the absence of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks could create a “very dangerous dead-end” and quickly lead to new violence.
President of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek also cautioned against UN endorsement in September.
Speaking in Ramallah after talks with Palestinian leaders, Mr Buzek said he “understood” the Palestinian position, but added that an endorsement could complicate peace efforts.
He said achieving peace through negotiations would be “excellent, but a unilateral declaration could be sometimes even dangerous”.