Peres Unveils Details of Peace Plan With Palestinians

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, February 13, 2002

Peres Unveils Details of Peace Plan With Palestinians

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Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres has unveiled details of his peace plan hammered out with Palestinian Legislative Council Speaker Ahmed Qurei (also known as Abu Ala), which is aimed at recognizing a Palestinian state and ending the 16-month bloody violence.

"We will recognize a Palestinian state, they will recognize the state of Israel," Israel Radio quoted the foreign minister as saying.

Peres said that the plan would start with a ceasefire, to be followed by mutual recognition between Israel and the Palestinian state and, in the end, by agreement on the final borders.

Peres told cabinet ministers last week that the peace plan, including the rapid creation of a Palestinian state as part of a truce-to-talk formula, had been completed and were waiting for the appropriate time for a government vote.

According to the plan, Israel will immediately acknowledge a Palestinian state, and this would enable negotiations on a permanent agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. A Palestinian state would impose clearer responsibilities than before on the Palestinian leadership.

The minister said the new Palestinian state would be established on the territory already ruled in full or part by the Palestinian National Authority, including some two-thirds of the Gaza Strip and 40 percent of the West Bank.

When the plan moved to its third phase, the issue of the final borders would be negotiated on the basis of U.N. resolutions 242 and 338 which call for Israel to withdraw from territories it occupied in the 1967 war, Peres said.

In his opinion, negotiations on the permanent agreement between the two states will begin on the eighth week after the ceasefire comes into effect, and will be completed within one year.

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