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Israel Would Accept US Truce Monitors: Peres
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Wednesday that Israel would accept US truce monitors in the West Bank and Gaza Strip if offered, while rejecting reports that the US has ruled out sending Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officials as monitors of the Israeli-Palestinian cease-fire.
Following calls by leaders of Group of Eight (G8), who met at the Italian city of Genoa last week, for sending observers to monitor the Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire, Israel indicated that it would not object to expanding CIA monitors already in place under a mechanism to consolidate the cease-fire.
The G8 comprises the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Japan, Italy, Canada and Russia.
Israel has long opposed to deploying an international observing force in the Palestinian territories, citing a possibility of internationalizing the conflict with the Palestinians and a reward to Palestinian "violence."
The Palestinians have for years called for the deployment of international observers to protect them against Israeli assaults.
"Observers are not the problem. Observers will not be of benefit, nor will they do damage. They do not have special significance," Peres told Israel Radio.
"The problem is between the attempt of the Arab side to internationalize the conflict between us, and our opposition to such internationalization. So, if there are American observers - no matter under what designation - there is no danger of internationalization," he said.
Peres said that Israel had effectively won a victory on the internationalization issue, because the recent meeting of G8 leaders had granted Israel the veto power over the make-up of a proposed observer force.
While hinting that the proposal was being discussed among various U.S. agencies, Peres said it would make no difference to Israel whether the proposed observers were from the CIA or from the U.S. State Department.
He said such an arrangement would also be acceptable to Egypt, which has played a key role in the truce mediation.
The foreign minister also said that Washington had yet to discuss the proposal in detail with Israel.
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