MOSCOW, 5 November 2003 — Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon failed yesterday in a bid to convince Russia to drop its efforts to turn the Middle East peace road map into a binding United Nations resolution.
Israeli officials said that Sharon won only cautious understanding but no compliance during talks that included a three-hour meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday.
Last week, Russia circulated a new UN draft resolution calling on Israel and the Palestinians to fulfill obligations set out in the road map, although the United States indicated it did not back the proposed measure.
The peace plan, backed by the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union, aims to end the three-year conflict between Israeli and Palestinians that has cost almost 3,600 lives. It calls for the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005 with security guarantees for Israel.
Sharon asked Putin to drop the UN resolution, Israeli officials said, and also to add the Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian hard-line movements to Russia’s list of “terrorist” organizations. But the Israeli officials said Putin and his Kremlin aides refused to offer an immediate response, sticking to a line that only “terror” organizations that operate in Russia will be recognized as such by Moscow.
The officials said there was also little backing from Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, who met Sharon yesterday.
“The prime minister had a very frank discussion (with Ivanov),” a senior Israeli official told AFP. “We expressed once more our total opposition to the Russian proposal.”
The Israeli official said Ivanov told Sharon “he will consider our (Israeli) stand, but he did not say that Russia was convinced.”
As Sharon was leaving the country, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a vague statement saying that Moscow would continue to push for Middle East peace through all channels, “including within the frameworks of the United Nations.”
