France will recognize a Palestinian state if its efforts to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks at an international conference fail, French Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development Laurent Fabius said on Friday.
He told French diplomats that the conference will aim to bring together the two parties and their US, European and Arab partners in order “to make happen a two-state solution.”
If this attempt faces a deadlock, France would have to recognize a Palestinian state, Fabuis said.
Photo: AFP
France’s Socialist government supports the idea of two states, but had previously argued that it was too early for outright recognition of a Palestinian state.
Fabius’ announcement comes as the Palestinians, buoyed by the successful Iran nuclear talks and the start of UN-mediated talks on Syria, have been exploring steps that could lead to a two-state solution, including an international conference and a UN Security Council resolution that would demand an end to illegal Israeli settlement building.
“The Palestinian leadership do welcome the announcement of Foreign Minister Fabius today [Friday] in Paris in connection with the convening of an international conference in the next few weeks, and if things fail the recognition of the state of Palestine by France,” Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour told reporters.
“I think the objective of this conference ... has to be to open the process that would lead to the end of the occupation and the preservation of the two-state solution,” he said.
As for recognition, “France promised us some time ago that if there is no opening for a meaningful political process — a collective process that would lead to the end of occupation and independence of the state of Palestine and therefore saving the two-state solution soon — then they will recognize the state of Palestine,” Mansour said.
He said the Palestinians wanted recognition from France “some time ago,” noting that the French parliament has unanimously recommended recognizing the state of Palestine.
“And we hope that they do that,” Mansour said.
“If they are tying it to the political process, that is their thinking, but eventually, if you believe in a two-state solution, then recognizing the state of Palestine is an investment,” he added.
Israel’s UN mission did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Earlier on Friday, at UN headquarters in New York, Mansour said the nuclear talks on Iran and talks on Syria, Yemen and Libya have spurred the Palestinians to seek a broader international framework to try to settle the decades-old conflict with Israel.
“This is a new culture — and why shouldn’t that spread to the Palestinian issue?” he asked.
Mansour said the Palestinians do not accept that this year “the door is closed” and nothing can be done to make progress toward a two-state solution because of the US presidential election in November.
Mansour said that was why he has been engaging all 15 members of the Security Council, including Israel’s close ally, the US, as well as the UN Secretariat and other “friends,” on their readiness to take steps — especially since virtually all members at the last Middle East meeting spoke out against Israeli settlement building in the Palestinian territories.
Mansour commended UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon “for characterizing correctly the settlements as illegal, illegitimate and a major obstacle to peace.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Ban’s remarks justify terrorism.
Besides a new resolution on settlements and an international conference, Mansour said he has raised the French idea of “a support group” of other countries to promote progress toward peace, an expansion of the quartet of Middle East mediators — the US, UN, EU and Russia.
He said adoption of a Security Council resolution would be “a signal” that the council and key world powers want to end the conflict and see an independent Palestinian state.
NEW STORM: investigators dubbed the attacks on US telecoms ‘Salt Typhoon,’ after authorities earlier this year disrupted China’s ‘Flax Typhoon’ hacking group Chinese hackers accessed the networks of US broadband providers and obtained information from systems that the federal government uses for court-authorized wiretapping, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Saturday. The networks of Verizon Communications, AT&T and Lumen Technologies, along with other telecoms, were breached by the recently discovered intrusion, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter. The hackers might have held access for months to network infrastructure used by the companies to cooperate with court-authorized US requests for communications data, the report said. The hackers had also accessed other tranches of Internet traffic, it said. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs
STICKING TO DEFENSE: Despite the screening of videos in which they appeared, one of the defendants said they had no memory of the event A court trying a Frenchman charged with drugging his wife and enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her screened videos of the abuse to the public on Friday, to challenge several codefendants who denied knowing she was unconscious during their actions. The judge in the southern city of Avignon had nine videos and several photographs of the abuse of Gisele Pelicot shown in the courtroom and an adjoining public chamber, involving seven of the 50 men accused alongside her husband. Present in the courtroom herself, Gisele Pelicot looked at her telephone during the hour and a half of screenings, while her ex-husband
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
RSS