EU says must speak with one voice on Middle East
Source: Reuters
By Phil Stewart ROME, Nov 23 (Reuters) - A south European initiative for Middle East peace is positive, but the EU should speak with a single voice on foreign policy matters, EU Foreign Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said on Thursday. Italy, Spain and France agreed last week to work on a joint Middle East plan which includes a ceasefire, a Palestinian government of national unity, an exchange of Israeli and Palestinian prisoners, and possibly international observers. Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi later said the initiative should be extended to other European partners, starting with Germany and Great Britain. Ferrero-Waldner said during a visit to Rome that the proposal needed to be discussed with all EU member states. She recommended that the matter be taken up ahead of the next EU meeting of foreign ministers on December 11-12. "I think any initiative that really is a positive stepping stone towards mitigating the conflict and towards peace is certainly to be seen positively," Ferrero-Waldner told Reuters. "But we have to find a united position, because only then we can make a difference." Speaking on the eve of a summit of EU and Russian leaders in Helsinki, she said that this united approach "goes for Russia, this also goes for the Middle East". "It should be discussed at the next council of foreign ministers and maybe also again at the European Council," she told reporters at a press conference. Israel has been cool to the idea of the southern European initiative and the United States is working on its own planning, which could include an international peace conference in Jordan at the end of the month. It is not clear how either initiative fits into the Middle East "road map" launched in 2003 by the Quartet of international mediators -- the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia -- and previously seen as the only agreed framework for reviving talks on long-term peace. Analysts say the new initiatives to revive talks hinge on an agreement between Palestinian Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah group and the governing Islamist group Hamas to form a national unity cabinet which Israel and the United States might deal with. Washington, Israel's chief ally, and the European Union want Hamas to renounce violence and recognise the Jewish state. In return they would lift the crippling sanctions imposed on the Palestinian Authority after Hamas won elections in January. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said last week that the southern European proposals were a "push in the right direction". But he has said the top priority now was to get a Palestinian national unity government and revive contacts between Israel and the Palestinians.
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