Haaretz
Shvat 4, 5767
AMMAN - EU foreign policy chief Javier
Solana urged Israel to freeze West Bank settlements and stop constructing
the security fence. He hoped "the realities on the ground" brought about
by Jewish settlement building would not "prevent a two-state solution from
happening."
Solana said he was struck during a tour Saturday of
West Bank Arab towns on Jerusalem's eastern slopes by the growth of
settlements and the barrier cutting into land that Palestinians want for a
state.
"I had the opportunity to make a tour along the eastern
part of Jerusalem and go to Abu Dis and its surroundings. You get really
very shocked every time you go and you see the situation worse, the wall
is more extended and settlements are more extended," Solana told reporters
in Amman.
Under the U.S.-backed road map, Israel was supposed to
halt settlement construction in the West Bank. The Palestinians were also
required to dismantle militant groups, a step they have yet to take.
The EU official said there was a "window of opportunity" that the
international community and the parties to the conflict should seize to
revive talks that collapsed in 2001 and have remained deadlocked since
Hamas took power.
"We think there is an opportunity now, an
opportunity that should not be let go by to open the political process
that should end up with the resolution of the conflict," he said.
Solana said a new resolve was emerging among the Quartet of Middle
East mediators - the United States, United Nations, Russia and the
European Union - that raised hopes for progress when a planned meeting
takes place in Washington on February 2.
"The political will is
being constructed. It's been too long in which the suffering of people has
been very deep ... and the moment we think has arrived to change the
approach," he said.