GAZA/ELSINORE, Denmark, 31 August — EU President Denmark yesterday called for a "realistic road map" toward Palestinian statehood to be drawn up quickly and said this would bolster the bloc’s so-far hapless drive for a Middle East peace conference. In a paper seen by Reuters, Denmark proposed three phases with obligations on both Israel and the Palestinians leading up to the establishment of a Palestinian state in June 2005.
The target date was set by US President George W. Bush in a Middle East policy speech two months ago. But the four-page document, which was distributed to EU foreign ministers at a meeting in the Danish town of Elsinore, was not a plan in itself. Rather it was a "summary and synthesis" of proposals already put forward by France, Germany, the Arab League and the International Crisis Group.
EU diplomats said the document should help prepare a common EU position for a meeting of the peace-broking "Quartet" in New York in mid-September. It will also build on the stronger role the EU has at last found for itself in Middle East diplomacy through the Quartet, which also includes the United States, the UN and Russia. Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller, whose country holds the EU presidency until the end of 2002, will visit Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel and the Palestinian territories early next week to discuss the timetable for statehood.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian interior minister said in an interview published yesterday that activists must halt bombings against Israelis or face "isolation" by Palestinian society. "Stop the suicide bombings, stop the murders for no reason," Abdel Razzak Al-Yahya said in remarks to an Israeli newspaper.
Senior Hamas official Abdel-Aziz Rantissi dismissed Yahya’s appeal. "He should have called on the Zionists to end their occupation and massacres. That is enough reason for pursuing the resistance and the martyrdom operations," Rantissi said.
Raising the specter of conflict on a second front, Israel demanded Syria and Lebanon restrain Hezbollah resistance fighters or face retaliation after an attack on the northern border on Thursday that wounded three soldiers and drew Israeli airstrikes.
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat called the Israeli Army’s strike on Thursday in the Gaza coastal village of Sheikh Ijleen, which killed a 55-year-old mother, two sons aged 23 and 17 and a 20-year-old cousin, a "deliberate crime". (The Independent)
