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Palestinians Urge U.S. to Press Israel to Implement Mitchell Report
A senior Palestinian official on Friday urged the U.S. administration to pressure Israel to implement recommendations of the Mitchell report.
Saeb Erekat, Palestinian minister of local government, made the appeal in a phone interview with the Cairo-based Voice of Arabs radio from the West Bank city of Ramallah.
"U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has to set a timetable to put the Mitchell recommendations into effect," said Erekat, referring to Powell's planned Mideast tour next week.
Erekat pointed out that any progress on resolving the current crisis will depend on the way the U.S. will deal with Israel.
Criticizing the Israeli government for failing to implement a U. S.-brokered ceasefire, he called on Israel to lift its siege on the Palestinians and withdraw tanks from the Palestinian territories under an agreed schedule.
"During the past 10 days, 11 Palestinians were killed by terrorist settlers while olive groves were destroyed in the West Bank and the Israeli siege is still sustained," he said.
The Mitchell report, released last month by an international panel led by former U.S. senator George Mitchell, urges the two sides to end violence immediately, adopt confidence-building measures and resume peace talks.
It also calls on Israel to freeze its settlement activities, and the Palestinians to take more determined actions to curb terrorist attacks against Israeli targets.
The Palestinian minister urged the international community to provide protection for the Palestinians and help "stop aggressions by Israeli forces and settlers against Palestinian lands and property."
Although the U.S.-brokered truce was put into effect on June 13, sporadic shootings and confrontations between the two sides have never stopped since then. Powell's upcoming Mideast trip is said to consolidate the shaky cease-fire.
More than 600 people, mostly Palestinians, have been killed since the outbreak of the Palestinian-Israeli bloodshed, sparked by Israeli violation of an Islamic holy shrine in East Jerusalem last September.
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