By Reuters
Haaretz
June 30, 2004
French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier met Yasser Arafat on Tuesday despite Israeli calls to shun the Palestinian Authority chairman and called for a revival of a violence-stalled peace "road map."
Barnier also voiced support for deploying "an international presence," including
European observers, in the Gaza Strip after a planned Israeli
pullout.
"The Palestinians have to put an end to acts of violence and
punish those responsible," Barnier told a news conference at Arafat's battered
West Bank headquarters.
"Israel also must take some measures such as to
stop building the wall and to stop the acts of demolition," he said, referring
to a West Bank barrier and destruction of Palestinian homes in army raids
against militants.
Barnier said France backed Egypt's security plan for
Gaza, which includes a proposed ceasefire and the dispatch of Egyptian experts
to train and help revamp Palestinian security services before an Israeli
withdrawal to keep militants in check.
"We have to seize every
opportunity - the Egyptian efforts and the Gaza withdrawal - so we can return to
the 'road map' to establish two states that live next to each other and enjoy
peace," Barnier said.
Co nstant violence has stalled the road map, a
peace plan based on mutual Israeli-Palestinian confidence-building measures
backed by the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and
Russia.
At the news conference, Arafat promised to "exert maximum efforts
to ensure the success" of the Egyptian proposal. He said the Palestinians had
welcomed Cairo's ideas on "reorganizing the security forces and strengthening
them."
Barnier had been due to visit Israel after meeting Arafat, but
Israel, which has urged the international community to shun the Palestinian
leader it accuses of fomenting violence, scheduled a separate visit by the
French minister for September instead.
Arafat has denied encouraging
bloodshed in nearly four years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.
In what
he calls a move that will bring peace closer, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon has pledged to carry out a unilateral evacuation of all Jewish
settlements in the Gaza Strip and four of the 120 in the West Ban k by the end
of 2005.
Sharon has fuelled Palestinian suspicions about the plan by
coupling the proposal with a pledge to hold on to parts of the West Bank
permanently.