|
Olmert offers olive branch
27/11/2006 16:17 - (SA)
Sde Boker, Israel - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert extended a vision of peace with the Palestinians on Monday, offering to resume long deadlocked talks as he sought to capitalise on a fledgling new truce.
"We are ready to withdraw from considerable territory in exchange for peace with the Palestinians," Olmert announced in a speech delivered on the second day of a truce in the Gaza Strip following months of unrelenting violence.
"I propose to you engaging on a new path. We started yesterday," added the premier, speaking at a ceremony commemorating the death of Israel's first prime minister David Ben Gurion, who is buried in Sde Boker.
Israeli troops withdrew from Gaza on Sunday, in keeping with the terms of the ceasefire that has seen no reported Palestinian rocket attacks on the Jewish state apart from initial impacts that violated the start of the truce.
Five months of military operations in the territory, waged to retrieve an Israeli soldier captured in June and to lessen rocket fire, have left around 400 Palestinians dead and three Israeli soldiers inside the coastal strip.
Unity government
But Olmert outlined a more positive future should a much-hyped Palestinian unity government, which has yet to see the light of day, emerge and accept conditions imposed by the international community.
Elected last March, the premier has only met Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, once informally since the two men took office.
Peace efforts have remained deadlocked and the internationally drafted roadmap peace plan has made next to no progress since its launch in 2003.
"If a new government (Palestinian) comes about and commits to the principles of the quartet, which will make the roadmap work, which will release Gilad Shalit, I propose an immediate meeting with Abu Mazen to engage in open, sincere and serious dialogue," said Olmert.
"In that framework and in keeping with the roadmap you could create an independent and viable Palestinian state with territory in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), a state with total sovereignty with defined borders," he said.
Funds, prisoners in exchange for soldier
The premier reiterated that Israel was prepared to release a considerable number of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Shalit, and unblock funds that were frozen after the radical Hamas won a landslide election in January.
"In exchange for Gilad Shalit, Israel is ready to release many Palestinian prisoners, including some who have been sentenced heavily," he said.
"We will also unblock the funds that we have frozen," said the premier, referring to customs duties collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority that the World Bank has estimated at $65m per month in 2005.
The Hamas-led Palestinian government has been boycotted by Israel and the West because of its refusal to recognise the Jewish state's right to exist, formally renounce violence and abide by past peace agreements.
As a result Palestinians are battling with the worst economic and political crisis since the Palestinian Authority was established in 1994.
- AFP
|
News
