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Peace Deal With Palestinians to be Struck This Year: Israeli Knesset Speaker
There will be a "historical agreement" between Israel and the Palestinians by the year-end, Speaker of the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) Avraham Burg told reporters on Tuesday.
At least a framework accord about the permanent status of Palestine will be reached by the two sides within this year, Burg added.
Israel and the Palestinians were supposed to reach a framework agreement first in February and then in May. But they missed both of the self-imposed deadlines.
The on-and-off peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have made no significant progress so far.
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat has said he will declare an independent state either in September or in November regardless of the outcome of the talks with Israel.
"With the principles already there, Israel will be the first country to recognize the Palestinian state" when it is declared under the peace agreement, said the 45-year-old speaker, the youngest ever in the country.
But he warned that if the Palestinian side declares an independent state without a peace agreement with Israel, the Palestinians "will lose the most strategic achievement they can have out of the declaration and this is the Israeli support" of the new state.
Burg accepted that not all thorny issues will be solved this year, but these problems are not surmountable, adding the principles are there to guarantee a settlement through future discussions.
Through the final-status talks, Israel and the Palestinians are trying to tackle issues such as the status of Jerusalem, the return of refugees, the border and the Jewish settlements.
Although the talks prove painstaking, "we all understand that peace is the key for the future, for prosperity. And without peace we are doomed to live in an awful military zone in the Middle East, which we do not want," said Burg, a strong supporter of Prime Minister Ehud Barak's peace process.
"I have no doubt there will be a peace. We want it," the speaker added.
In regard to the future ties between Israel and the emerging Palestinian state, he voiced the hope that the ties will be on an equal basis between state and state instead of between a state and an organization.
He also wishes to see the greatest possible cooperation between the two sides in the economic field in order to create a situation that economic standards of the individual Palestinians will be dramatically be improved.
By then, "the Palestinians would say peace is good because we gained from it," he said.
On peace with Syria, Burg said they will have to wait and see what will happen in the country as the long-time President Hafez Al-Assad died just 12 days ago.
At the moment, there is no hope of resuming talks with the Syrians because the new Syrian leader, Al-Bashar Assad, will put priority on domestic issues to consolidate his position, Burg said.
The talks between Israel and Syria, which resumed last December, broke down early this year.
But Burg said the Israelis "are always ready to deal with the Syrians and resume talks with the new leader of Syria. We hope Bashar will be more flexible than his father in future negotiations."
"If Syria is more open to the outside world, we are more than happy to go hand in hand with Syria toward a better future," he said.
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