HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- UK rift with Bush over Middle
East
EU united in dismay at call for Arafat to stand down Patrick Wintour, Ian Black in
Brussels and Ewen MacAskill Britain, in a rare breach with
Washington, aligned itself yesterday with the rest of Europe in expressing
dismay over George Bush's Middle East peace plan.
It is the first serious rift on foreign policy between Tony Blair and Mr Bush
since the Palestinian uprising began 21 months ago.
Ahead of a difficult meeting with Mr Bush today at the G8 in Canada, Mr Blair
and the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, openly rejected US demands that the
Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, stand down.
Mr Blair insisted: "It is up to the Palestinians to choose their own
leaders."
The British government put pressure on the US administration at the weekend
to shelve its plans to call for Mr Arafat's removal.
The concerns in London and other European capitals over Mr Bush's speech were
reported to be shared by the Israeli foreign minister, Shimon Peres.
Shimon Schiffer, a respected Israeli journalist, who was with Mr Peres when
he watched the speech on television, reported the foreign minster as saying: "He
[Bush] is making a fatal mistake by making the establishment of a Palestinian
state contingent upon a change in the Palestinian leadership."
The foreign minister added that "a bloodbath" could be expected, the Yediot
Aharonot newspaper reported. Mr Peres's spokesman later disclaimed the comments.
The disappointment felt by Mr Blair and Mr Straw was echoed in European
capitals. As well as the Arafat demand, there was unhappiness about the apparent
US decision to put a Middle East peace conference on the backburner.
There was also dismay over the lack of a clear timetable for creation of a
Palestinian state, the absence of any call for an Israeli withdrawal from the
West Bank and no move to send international monitors to the Middle East.
Mr Blair tried to minimise the split by emphasising his disappointment with
Mr Arafat's political leadership, and agreeing that the peace process might be
easier if the Palestinian Authority president stood down.
Privately, cabinet ministers are exasperated with Mr Bush's speech and the
damage to the peace process by the continuing splits inside the US
administration. They believe the US demand for Mr Arafat's removal is
counterproductive and will only ensure that the politically weakened leader, who
is 73, will be re-elected next year, probably without opposition.
Downing Street noted that the cardinal rule of the Northern Ireland peace
process had been to leave each community to choose its leader.
Mr Straw attacked Mr Arafat for rejecting previous peace proposals but said:
"We deal with the leaders who are elected and, in the case of dictatorial
regimes, those that are not elected, and if president Arafat were re-elected by
the Palestinian Authority we would deal with him."
In public, the EU reacted with caution but in private there were repeated
expressions of dismay. "We will not demand that Arafat or any other leader in
the region is removed," said the Danish prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen,
who takes over the EU's rotating presidency on Monday.
Only last Saturday the EU called for the "early convening of an international
conference", a point conspicuously ignored in Mr Bush's address.
Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief, who speaks for all 15 member
states, sought to emphasise the positive by praising US "re-engagement." But he
stated unequivocally: "An early international conference ... is more than ever
necessary."
At the Seville summit at the weekend the EU also called for the "early
establishment of a democratic, viable, peaceful and sovereign state of
Palestine, on the basis of the 1967 borders", way ahead of US backing for a
"provisional" state on condition the Palestinians ditch Mr Arafat.
"This is disappointing," said a well-placed Brussels source. "There are all
kinds of negatives: leadership, security first, and new conditions for political
negotiations before even a provisional state would be recognised."
The new French foreign minister, Dominique Galouzeau de Villepin, said
reforms were needed, but added: "Only the Palestinians themselves can choose
their leaders." Joschka Fischer, the German foreign minister, made the same
point.
The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, who has opposed calls for Mr Arafat to
be replaced, cautioned that it was not the best time for Palestinian elections.
"You could find yourself in a situation that the radicals are the ones that get
elected, and it would be the result of a democratic process and we have to
accept that," he said.
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