 |
Israel Will not Oppose Expansion of CIA Monitoring Mechanism: Sharon
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Monday that his country would not object to reinforcement of U.S. Central Intelligence Agency monitors in the region to oversee the ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians.
Addressing the Knesset (parliament) Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Sharon said that this issue should be discussed and coordinated with the U.S. administration, according to Israel Radio reports.
Sharon obviously thought that increasing the size of the CIA contingent here could be a compromise plan that would ease the pressure from the international community that has urged Israel and the Palestinians to accept third-party observers to help stop the violence.
The clashes between the two sides have lasted for about 10 months and left over 600, most of them Palestinians, dead.
Israel has repeatedly rejected the idea of an international observing force in the area, while the Palestinians urge the international community to send such a force to help both sides to hold the ceasefire that was reached under the auspices of U.S. CIA Director George Tenet on June 13.
Leaders from seven industrialized countries and Russia, or G8, issued a statement in Genoa, Italy last Saturday, saying "Third- party monitoring, accepted by both parties, would serve their interests in implementing the Mitchell report."
The Mitchell report, published in May by an international fact- finding panel led by former U.S. senator George Mitchell, urged both sides to stop the violence, carry out confidence-building measures after a cooling-off period, and finally resume their peace talks.
Israeli government sources revealed that facing such great pressure, especially after the United States has endorsed the idea of dispatching international observers, Israel had to do something to defend its international image.
Israel would rather accept the U.S. inspectors as it was worried that monitors from European countries would be more "partial" to the Palestinians, according to the sources.
However, Israel Radio reported Monday that before giving nods to the expansion of the CIA monitoring system, Sharon wants to get an "in-depth" clarification from Washington of issues tied to the Mitchell report.
The radio did not specify the issues Sharon wants Washington to clarify, but it is expected that Sharon would want the U.S. to define the mandate of the CIA monitoring mechanism.
Sharon's remarks in Monday obviously endorsed the comments of Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who said Sunday that Israel would not rule out American observers and could accept an additional "three, four, or five" CIA officials to augment the existing U.S. monitoring mechanism.
The U.S. monitoring mechanism was established following the Wye River Memorandum between Israel and the Palestinians in 1998, under which CIA officials would be stationed in the region to hear the complaints of treaty violations by both sides.
The mechanism broke down after the violence between the two sides erupted last September, but the Tenet ceasefire resurrected it and since then the three sides had convened several rounds of security coordination meeting, though failing to make any progress.
At recent meetings, the CIA officials expressed their deep disappointment with the functioning of the mechanism and wanted to find a more adaptable alternative that could yield real results and enforce the ceasefire.
The idea of expanding the CIA monitoring system was raised for the first time during a meeting between Peres and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo a week ago, some Israeli sources said.
In This Section
|