BELGIUM: European Union foreign ministers anxious to avoid U.N. showdown on Middle East

Record ID: 395991

  • Title: BELGIUM: European Union foreign ministers anxious to avoid U.N. showdown on Middle East
  • Date: 19th July 2011
  • Summary: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (JULY 18, 2011) (REUTERS) EUROPEAN UNION (EU) HIGH REPRESENTATIVE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS CATHERINE ASHTON ARRIVING FOR NEWS CONFERENCE JOURNALISTS ASHTON AT NEWS CONFERENCE JOURNALIST ASKING QUESTION (SOUNDBITE) (English) EUROPEAN UNION (EU) HIGH REPRESENTATIVE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS CATHERINE ASHTON SAYING: "My objective is to get talks moving on the Mid
  • Embargoed: 3rd August 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Belgium, Belgium
  • Country: Belgium
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA9L68D4UVD124TU889SQRIIAZ1
  • Story Text: European Union foreign ministers sought on Monday (July 18) to head off a diplomatic showdown at the United Nations over stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that could expose awkward policy rifts in the bloc.
    EU governments are increasingly anxious to avoid confrontation during the September U.N. General Assembly meeting at which the Palestinians may seek wider international recognition for a state if there is no last-minute deal to resume talks.
    A push by the Palestinians to be recognised as full member state of the U.N. would likely fail to win the necessary approval from the Security Council, where the United States could veto it.
    But the worry in Brussels is that if mediation efforts fail, even a largely symbolic vote at the General Assembly would force many EU governments to make difficult choices, with many likely taking opposing sides.
    Such a split would undermine the EU's efforts to gain a more prominent role in Middle East policy-making, which the bloc's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, has sought since taking office in 2009.
    At a meeting in Brussels, EU foreign ministers made a show of unity by calling on the Quartet of Middle East peace mediators to renew efforts to revive talks and praising Ashton's involvement in pushing for agreement.
    "The EU stresses the central role of the Quartet and fully supports the High Representative in her efforts for the Quartet to create a credible perspective for the re-launching of the peace process," they said in a statement.
    The EU is hoping to persuade the Palestinians to drop plans to push the issue of statehood at the U.N. and return to the negotiating table, but diplomats have said the Quartet has so far failed to find language that would satisfy all sides.
    Ashton, who had requested the Quartet's meeting last week, said intense talks among the negotiators would continue in the coming weeks.
    "My objective is to get talks moving on the Middle East process and the purpose of the Quartet meeting was to try and find a way in which our combined efforts could produce language that might persuade both sides to come back into talks. That discussion is still ongoing. It doesn't surprise me that in the course of what was a very good two, two and a half hour conversation we didn't find all the words we wanted but the envoys are still working on that and will continue to do so," Ashton told journalist at a news conference following a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.
    "We don't know what resolution there will be in September. And we will have to wait and see what that is. Needless to say our efforts again are concerned with realities and to try and make sure that we are supporting the building of a Palestinian state for the future. And support for the people of Israel. So we continue with that work," she added.
    French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said the U.S. proposed text was diving opinions and France would host a donor conference in order to aid the Palestinian side.
    "I regret that unfortunately the Quartet at the ministerial level was not able to reach an agreement. The American text is creating an imbalance of the parameters of negotiations that Europe had proposed. It seems that the process is continuing and I restated that France is ready to, given the extremely tough financial situation for the Palestinian Authority, to organise a donor conference in September which received the support of several delegations, notably that of Cathy Ashton," said Juppe.
    The Quartet, consisting of the EU, Russia, the United Nations and the United States, met last week in Washington but failed to announce any progress towards resuming talks which had collapsed in September 2010 over Israel's settlement activity.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2011. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register