Israeli, Palestinian FMs set to meet at Dublin talks

Jordan Times, Thursday, May 6, 2004

DUBLIN (AFP) — The Israeli and Palestinian foreign ministers were set to meet face to face on Wednesday at a crucial time for their region's peace process, as they joined a string of fellow ministers from Europe and the Middle East for two days of talks in Dublin.

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom and his Palestinian counterpart Nabil Shaath were among around three dozen ministers converging in the Irish capital for a Euro-Mediterranean meeting convened by the European Union.

The main business of the gathering was to take place behind closed doors late Wednesday at historic Dublin Castle, where the assembled ministers were to hold a working dinner.

Topping their agenda were prospects for bringing peace to the Middle East, with the situation in Iraq and also European relations with the wider region also being discussed, an EU official said.

Plans had also been discussed for Shalom and Shaath to meet separately at a bilateral meeting on Thursday morning, but this was now not likely to happen, an Israeli diplomatic source told AFP.

The event — hosted by the Irish EU presidency — comes at a crucial moment, sandwiched between Tuesday's meeting in New York of the diplomatic "Quartet" of Middle East peace sponsors and a summit of the Arab League in Tunisia later this month, the EU official said.

"It's obviously important as a chance for them [Shalom and Shaath] to meet face to face, between the Quartet meeting and the Arab League summit," he told AFP on condition of anonymity. "We are not necessarily expecting any major breakthrough, but any contact is significant at this time."

The Quartet groups the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia.

The foreign ministers will face each other with plans for peace between Israel and the Palestinians at a standstill following uncertainty over Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's controversial scheme to disengage from Palestinian territories.

Sharon's own Likud Party has rejected the plan, which calls for a less-than-full Israeli pullout from the West Bank, even as it won support from a Quartet meeting in the United States this week.

Both Shalom and Shaath passed through London ahead of the gathering in Dublin, holding separate talks with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Wednesday night's dinner would also let European nations and Middle Eastern countries including Egypt, Syria and Jordan exchange opinions on the rapidly changing situation in Iraq, the EU official said.

"It will be an opportunity for European nations to get the Arab view on Iraq at first hand," he said.

The Euro-Med ministers were additionally scheduled to hold a more formal session on Thursday.

But the EU official said that this would be mainly concerned with the formal work of the Euro-Med grouping — which has met six times since 1995 — such as cultural links.

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python (Alquds, 1/25/03.

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