Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-04-09-Speech-2-211"
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"en.20020409.8.2-211"2
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".
Mr President, due to time restrictions, I shall make a few brief comments.
I am beginning to rather doubt – and this causes me to be very pessimistic – that the Tenet Plan, followed by the Mitchell Plan and followed by a negotiation – and I do not know when it will take place – is going to be the ideal formula. If we do not have a negotiator on the Palestinian side, it is going to be very difficult – as I said before – for us to achieve our aim through this process of tiny steps. That is my worry and that is why I am pessimistic. I am not going to suddenly come up with some miraculous solution and it would be naïve, stupid and unworthy of you to expect it. However, if we have to seek some solution, I have said on previous occasions that we need an ‘express’ Mitchell Plan, a fast Mitchell Plan, not for the times in which it was conceived, but a much faster Mitchell plan, which would lead us as quickly as possible to a final agreement.
Finally, I think it is essential that we ask that the Beirut Resolution – which has not been read properly and it should be, since some of its points are very important – should also become a United Nations Security Council Resolution; that that commitment, this gesture from the Arab world towards Israel’s security should also become a Security Council Resolution. I believe that that would be an additional element in terms of recovering the trust between the parties, a trust which unfortunately does not exist at the moment.
Finally, a comment of a personal nature: I know that many of you have suffered a lot. I have seen some people who have particularly suffered, some of whom have even been expelled from the region. I can say that I understand your feelings just as I understand the feelings of the Palestinians and the Israelis. I have seen many Palestinians die and I have seen many Palestinians suffer and I have also seen families of old friends on the side of peace in Israel who do not take their children in the same bus to school and who separate their children into two groups for fear of dying in a terrorist attack. We must understand all of this. If we do not understand the two things, we will never resolve the problem. Therefore, let us understand the problem in depth so that we can resolve it.
Lastly, as for me, Javier Solana, rest assured that I will never cease working for peace in the Middle East, as I have done up until now. I have been working for it since the Madrid Conference, many years ago, and I expect to continue working for it while I still have the energy and the strength.
In view of the last intervention by Mr Souladakis, I would like to tell you that tomorrow will not be the first time we have spoken to Colin Powell: we speak to Mr Powell practically every day and it is certainly partly as a result of those conversations that the meeting will take place tomorrow. I do not share the frustrating feeling that the European Union carries no weight. Quite the opposite: as a result of these contacts, of this passion we have applied to trying to resolve the problem, tomorrow’s meeting in Madrid has been called and the major players in relation to this conflict will reach a collective agreement to try to resolve it.
I would like to say that, at least for tomorrow, I believe there are three fundamental messages. Afterwards, we will return to this House to explain the development of the issue by means of a parliamentary debate.
The first message, which is fundamental, is that the representatives of the major players who are going to meet tomorrow must make an effort to ensure that the Security Council resolutions be applied immediately, without delay. I repeat: without delay.
I believe it is essential that for the first time a joint and public declaration of this kind should be made by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the European Union, the Russian Federation and the United States. And I believe that we Europeans must support this proposal and this type of declaration.
Secondly, I believe we must do everything possible to ensure that the important players meeting tomorrow see to it that the Palestinian Authority is not degraded any further. Everything possible must be done to ensure that the Palestinian Authority recovers its capacities. It is highly contradictory – as has been stressed already – to ask the Palestinian Authority to sign a ceasefire agreement, to arrest the terrorists who are free in certain parts of Palestine, when it does not have the means to do so. This morning, you have seen the news that Israeli forces have withdrawn from a city. On leaving that city they have bombed and destroyed the general headquarters of the Palestinian Authority. At the same time it is very contradictory tomorrow to ask the Palestinian Authority to lead the way in finding the solution for a ceasefire. Therefore, and as a result of this reasoning, it seems to me fundamental that this message be sent rigorously and clearly. It is a message that must be understood and that must be expressed clearly so that everybody understands it and so that our Israeli friends also understand it. We all have many friends in Israel who agree on this point.
It follows from this approach that it is necessary for the international community to be willing to engage on the ground. This is something that I am saying with conviction, for the first time. I believe that we must begin to think seriously about it. But this is not going to happen in 24 hours, it is not going to happen without any mandate. When it was said that the Europeans should be deployed in a military or policing sense – or I do not know how – in the territories, it is clear that this will require some kind of mandate. And that is what we have to work on: on ensuring that the next Security Council Resolution allows, once the necessary conditions are in place, for the possibility of an international presence on the ground. I believe that is a reasonable measure which the European Union can support, but which it must support jointly with others, in particular the United States and the Russian Federation. That is what we must do.
Thirdly: tomorrow we must send a clear signal – not just the Europeans, but collectively with all the major players – that there must be a political perspective. And there is no need to invent that perspective, since one has already been invented: it consists of two states, with secure borders (one of which is the Palestinian State, whose borders must be set in accordance with the Security Council Resolutions, that is to say, those set in 1967) and able to live together. That is the final objective. How can that objective be achieved? That is the difficult question that we have been working on for many months. It is possible that the only way forward is the Tenet Plan and that, afterwards, the Mitchell Plan should be implemented, which I know very well since I drew it up jointly with Senator Mitchell."@en1
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