Kindgo
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http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentS...d=1048313900149
By Leslie Crawford in Madrid
Published: April 21 2003 5:00 | Last Updated: April 21 2003 5:00
José María Aznar, the Spanish prime minister, will this week launch a determined bid to host an international conference to bring peace to the Middle East.
Mr Aznar will travel to Paris and London to discuss his initiative with Jean-Pierre Raffarin, his French counterpart, and Tony Blair, the British prime minister. A trip to Washington is being arranged for early May.
"The Spanish government believes it is vital to reactivate peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians," an aide to Mr Aznar said yesterday. "Spain has always linked its support for the US intervention in Iraq with the need to achieve a lasting peace in the Middle East."
The Spanish initiative has been preceded by a flurry of telephone diplomacy over the Easter weekend. According to the prime minister's aides, Mr Aznar phoned Yassir Arafat in an attempt to coax the Palestinian leader to come to an understanding with Mahmoud Abbas, his recently appointed prime minister.
Mr Aznar, now in the final lap of a second, four-year term, is understood to be keen to match the success of his Socialist predecessor, Felipe González, who brought the Israelis and Palestinians together for an international conference on the Middle East at the end of the Gulf war in 1991. The first Madrid conference is credited with launching the Oslo peace process, now stalled.
A second Madrid conference, Spanish diplomats say, would aim to tackle the issues of Palestinian sovereignty, territorial borders, Israeli settlements, and the return of Palestinian exiles to their homeland. "Spain is well-placed to promote this new initiative as it enjoys good relations with Arafat and other Arab leaders and it is also an established interlocutor with the United States," one government spokesman explained.
However, the spokesman admitted he did not know whether the time was ripe for a second Middle East conference. The US government has yet to publish its "road map" for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. In addition, Mr Aznar may have jeopardised Spain's high standing in the Arab world by strongly supporting US and British intervention in Iraq.
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God bless,
Kindgo
Inside the will of God there is no failure. Outside the will of God there is no success.
Posts: 4320 | From: Sunny Florida | Registered: Jun 2002
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