Mideast'Road Map' Architects to Meet, 12/19 Options

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Dec 19, 5:03 PM EST
Mideast'Road Map' Architects to Meet
By EDITH M. LEDERER
Associated Press Writer


UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The architects of the "road map" to Palestinian-Israeli peace hope to meet early next year to press for its implementation, the European Union's top diplomat said Friday.

The road map was drafted by Russia, the United States, the United Nations and the European Union - the so-called Quartet - and aims to end more than two years of Mideast violence and establish a Palestinian state by 2005. But it has failed to make much progress.

"We hope to have a Quartet meeting soon - at the beginning of the year," EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. "It's needed to give a push to the implementation of the road map - no doubt about that."

The Quartet last met Sept. 26 on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly at a time of escalating Israeli-Palestinian violence that halted implementation of the road map.

The four parties, who announced the peace plan in May, had said they would meet again by year's end to assess progress.

Solana said after meeting with Secretary-General Kofi Annan that no date or location had been decided for the Quartet meeting early next year.

Since the last meeting, he said, the Palestinians have a new prime minister, Ahmed Qureia, and "events have taken place in the Middle East."

One of those events was a major speech Thursday by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who warned that if peace efforts remain stalled, he will take unilateral action, including drawing a temporary border in the West Bank and moving some settlements.

Solana's office in Brussels, Belgium, issued a statement welcoming some aspects of Sharon's statement but warned that "unilateral" moves would not help end the conflict.

Solana told reporters at the United Nations, "I think that not only myself, many people do think that whatever is the solution, whatever the steps that are taken, they have to be approved, accepted, negotiated by both sides.

"Unilateral decision is not what is going to help, to our mind, to find a stable, long-lasting solution."

Both the Israelis and Palestinians have committed themselves to the "road map" but both have evaded key obligations.

Israel did not freeze construction in Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, and the Palestinians said they would not forcibly dismantle Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other militant groups. Efforts by Qureia to persuade militants to end terror attacks - dismissed by Israel as insufficient - have made no headway.

"We think there is need for contact between the two sides, the sooner the better," Solana said. "We would like to cooperate on that process."

Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved.