 |
Roundup: Implementation Key to Ending Violence
Under intense international mediation, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak on Tuesday agreed to take "immediate and concrete" measures to end the 20-day-old violence.
This was the outcome of marathon consultations and negotiations at the emergency Mideast summit at this Egypt's Red Sea resort since Monday.
The summit was aimed at finding a way out of the spiraling violence between fully-armed Israeli troops and stone-throwing Palestinians, in which over 100 people, mostly Palestinians, have been killed and 3,000 other injured.
It brought together Barak and Arafat, the two protagonists, and other major players of US President Bill Clinton, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Jordanian King Abdullah II, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
After two days of against-the-clock mediation and discussions, a closing statement was hammered out Tuesday.
According to the agreement read out by Clinton, Arafat and Barak agreed to take immediate concrete measures to end the current confrontation, ensure an end to violence and incitement and prevent recurrence of recent events.
Both sides agreed to enhance security cooperation and that the Israeli side will redeploy troops to positions prior to the break-out of the crisis while the Palestinians will restore law and order, Clinton said. Israel will also end the closure on the West Bank and Gaza and reopen Gaza airport, he added.
The two sides also agreed on a fact-finding committee whose composition will be determined by Clinton and Annan.
On the peace process, Clinton said that the two sides agreed to a resumption of peace talks in pursuit of a final-status agreement on the basis of U.N. resolutions 242 and 338 and subsequent understandings.
"They agreed that the U.S. will consult with both parties within the next two weeks to find a way forward," he added.
Clinton urged the two sides to count on each other in building confidence and promoting reconciliation.
But just as Mubarak said, the outcome of the talks "may not meet the expectations of our peoples."
Arafat, who came to the summit with demand for a full-fledged international investigation into the cause of the violence, had to accept a U.S.-led fact-finding mission.
Arafat will face an uphill task to sell the ceasefire agreement to the enraged and mobilized Palestinians, many of whom opposed Arafat's attending the summit and are just not satisfied with returning to the status quo before the clashes.
Palestinian lawmaker Hanan Ashrawi said "if we go back to that situation it doesn't mean that Israel is subject to accountability, that Israel will not continue to behave like an occupier."
The spiritual leader of the militant Palestinian Hamas group Ahmed Yassin also said the agreement insulted Palestinian popular opinion and was not binding on his resistance movement.
In addition, the presidential statement was fraught with vague and "draft language" rather than detailed steps on any of the key issues, which left potential problems in implementation.
After the summit, both sides still stressed the other's commitment to the agreement. Arafat said upon his return to Gaza Tuesday that he expected an accurate and honest Israeli implementation of what has been agreed on.
Barak stressed "if it turned out...that it did not lead to a decrease in violence, it is vital for Israel to find any way to decrease the violence. And I say to my sorrow that we will know what to do in any situation that will develop."
Implementation of the agreement holds the key to developments in the coming few days. On Tuesday night, security officials from both sides were to meet to discuss cooperation, which is the first step to calm the situation.
There seemed to be more movements on the ground, and Israel has allowed the reopen of the Gaza airport, closed on October 8 when clashes between the two sides flared up.
The agreement had been difficult to come by, its implementation will prove to be even more difficult. A failure to translate the words into reality could spell yet another disaster, as distrust runs deep and anger runs high.
In This Section
|