Brussels, 18/10/2010 (Agence Europe)- The mini-summit on the Middle East which was due to take place in Paris on 21 October by initiative of the French president has been postponed indefinitely, Israel has announced, intimating that the reorganisation of the summit was being looked into, but that no new date has been given. The meeting had been planned to bring together Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the president of the Palestinian Authority, Egyptian President Hosni Moubarak and the head of state of the host country, Nicolas Sarkozy.
The mini-summit had been put forward as a presentation for the “peace summit” under the aegis of the UfM (Union for the Mediterranean, which is jointly chaired by Paris and Cairo), scheduled to be held in Barcelona at the end of November. The chances of this meeting taking place have therefore been reduced.
The cabinet of the Israeli prime minister announced on Saturday evening that the decision to postpone had been taken as a result of consultations with the other protagonists. On Sunday, French press correspondents on the ground were asking whether the meeting had indeed been postponed, or just cancelled. They noted that the Israelis have rejected criticism from Europe and the United States on the resumption of colony-building. “There is no moratorium on building in Jerusalem, we have always said that”, the Israeli government announced, as reported by the French media, which has paid much attention to developments in this dossier that sees France committed, alongside Spain, to an active procedure aiming explicitly to boost Europe's role. Since last summer, both countries have pledged to ensure Europe's visible and active presence on the Middle Eastern scene, even questioning Catherine Ashton's actions. The high representative of the EU for foreign affairs appears to be somewhat sidelined by the French and Spanish foreign ministers, Bernard Kouchner and Miguel Angel Moratinos respectively, who recently visited the region. The former went so far as to openly criticise the absence of European diplomacy from the launch of the direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiation process. Even though the American secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, had planned to attend the Paris meeting on 21 October, Ashton was not on the guest list. Speaking to Agence Europe on Thursday, her spokesperson was hard put to it to state clearly whether the HR/VP was planning to contribute to this mini-summit aiming to increase Europe's role in the peace process. That “Baroness Ashton is of course concerned” by the subject was as much as she would say, without any further clarification.
Clearly, the postponement of the Paris mini-summit shortens the odds of success in Barcelona at the end of November for the UfM “summit”, at least on the subject of peace in the Middle East and in the presence of President Obama. On the other subjects, the senior officials in charge of the EuroMed are meeting in Dubrovnik on Monday and Tuesday to continue their examination of the draft final declaration of the Barcelona summit and of the draft budget and internal regulations of the secretariat general of the UfM.
In the meantime, the declarations and emerging new facts have come together to feed into a sense of relative pessimism on the diplomatic outcome of the Barcelona summit. Late last week, Israel resumed colonisation in East Jerusalem, with new calls for tenders. “If Israel does not respect the moratorium on colonisation, the Arab League will look at another option outside the peace process, such as going to the United Nations to call for the recognition of the Palestinian state”, said the Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Abu Gheit, who was in Brussels late last week for a meeting of the Friends of Pakistan. The countries of the Arab League may next month ask the UN to recognise the Palestinian state if Israel continues with its colony-building, the head of Egyptian diplomacy and co-president of the UfM, has announced.
In an interview broadcast on Sunday by the Israeli television Channel 1, Mahmoud Abbas reiterated that without a genuine freeze on colonisation, no resumption in talks will be possible. He warned against a rise in extremism in the event that the peace process breaks down. He also rejected the condition insisted upon by Israel in return for agreeing to a two-month extension of the moratorium on colonisation, which is to accept the Jewish nature of the state of Israel. The Palestinians have no need to demonstrate that they have already recognised the state, they said, pointing out that they had done so by means of the Oslo agreements. “Obviously we recognise the state of Israel. It's obviously a Jewish state. If you want it recognised as the Jews' state you are free to do so, but do not ask us to recognise it as a Jewish state”. He went on to point out that “you did not ask recognition of Egypt, Jordan or any other country in the world”. He lamented the fact that “the Israelis come with a new demand every day. Enough is enough”. In answer to a question, he stated that “the breaking up of the Palestinian Authority is not on the agenda, but nothing is ruled out. Israel occupies the territory, but evades its responsibilities”, he said. (F.B./transl.fl)