Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Eashoa' M'sheekha who wrote (48737)	10/1/2002 10:33:37 PM
From: Eashoa' M'sheekha	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Blair: Israel, Palestinians must resume peace talks by year's end The Palestinians welcomed British Prime Minister Tony Blair's statement Tuesday that Israel and the Palestinians must resume full peace talks by the end of the year, but Israel Radio quoted Israeli diplomatic sources dismissing the speech, saying they were sticking with the roadmap outlined by U.S. President George Bush. Israel Radio quoted senior diplomatic officials as saying that the British Foreign Office can prepare speeches for Blair to its heart's content, but that Israel will stick with U.S. President Bush's roadmap for the Middle East. Blair spoke at his ruling Labour Party's annual conference in northern England. "This is a very important statement," Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's bureau said a statement. "We call on Blair to pressure Israel to return without delay to the negotiations table," the statement said. "The Palestinian Authority calls on Blair to increase pressure on Israel to immediately implement UN Security Council Resolution 1435 by withdrawing its forces from the all occupied Palestinian territories," the statement added. Blair has been criticized by left-wingers in his Labour Party for threatening war in Iraq instead of trying to end Israeli-Palestinian violence. He said United Nations resolutions must be implemented across the Middle East, not just in Baghdad. "Yes, what is happening in the Middle East now is ugly and wrong - the Palestinians living in increasingly abject conditions, humiliated and hopeless (and) Israeli civilians brutally murdered," he told Labour's annual conference. "By this year's end, we must have revived final status negotiations and they must have explicitly as their aims an Israeli state free from terror, recognized by the Arab world, and a viable Palestinian state based on the boundaries of 1967." Blair stated his support for United Nations resolutions to be applied to the situation between Israel and the Palestinians as much as to Iraq. "But they don't just apply to Israel. They apply to all parties." An aide to Blair said his appeal was an attempt to get the peace process moving again, but added the prime minister was not trying to lead a brokering process. In his speech on the Middle East in June 2002, Bush urged Palestinians to replace PA Chairman Yasser Arafat and adopt democratic changes that would lead to provisional Palestinian statehood within about 18 months and a final settlement in three years. He called for Israel to stop building homes for Jews on the West Bank and in Gaza, and to eventually pull back to the borders it held before the 1967 war.