EU Foreign Policy Chief, Catherine Ashton, Urges Israel to Resume Peace Talks

Published yesterday (updated) 13/03/2010 21:34

Bethlehem - Ma'an/Agencies -

The EU called on Israel to resume peace talks with the Ramallah leadership on Saturday, a day before the union's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton is set to begin her fist trip to the region, The Associated Press reported.

Ashton warned that peace efforts, brought to a halt in December 2008 as Israel launched its war on Gaza, could fail, condemning Israel's plan to build 1,600 new exclusively Israeli homes in occupied East Jerusalem.

"I'm very concerned, I'm concerned that Israeli announced this just as the proximity talks were beginning" between Israelis and the Palestinians, she said.

Ashton called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "to demonstrate leadership," speaking to journalists after meeting with European foreign ministers in Saariselka, northern Finland.

"We need a negotiated peace settlement, it needs to happen quickly and now," she said.

Ashton said she would notify Netanyahu that "he's in a unique position, he has a high rating in Israel, and it's not always the case, and there has been over the past month relative calm," adding that the Israeli prime minister should seize the opportunity to take his people to "the possibility of a long term calm and prosperity.

"And that can only be done by reaching a settlement," she added.

Spain, the present holders of the EU's rotating presidency, also voiced their concerns for Israel's announcement and the potentially detrimental affects it could have on the peace process.

"Until now, it's not too late, but if we wait for more than two years it will be too late," Spain's Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said, warning that there would be no more land left to negotiate and that it would be extremely difficult to fix borders between Israel and a Palestinian state.

"The Palestinian moderate leadership would not be able to maintain themselves as a peaceful partner, so the time is for urgency, for moving forward," he added.

Ashton will visit Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories and give a platform speech in Egypt, before attending a meeting of the Middle East Quartet in Moscow.

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