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| Thursday, 3 March 2005 |
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World powers demand Palestinian security crackdown LONDON, Wednesday (Reuters) World powers on Tuesday demanded immediate Palestinian action to catch those behind a suicide bombing in Israel, but also offered support for reforms aimed at halting violence and preparing Palestinians for statehood. "We are trying to lay a foundation for a successful movement through the road map to a two-state solution," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a news conference in London. She was speaking after an international meeting, hosted by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, that tried to underpin efforts by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to implement reforms, halt violence and resume peacemaking with Israel after the death last year of veteran Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. "We've got a script that is clearer today than ever before," Blair told a news conference with Abbas after the meeting. Meeting on the sidelines, the quartet that sponsored the 2003 "road map" to peace - the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States - urged "immediate action by the Palestinian Authority to apprehend and bring to justice the perpetrators" of the Tel Aviv bomb that killed five people. Abbas, again condemning Friday's attack, which undermined a three-week-old truce with Israel, said security reforms were driven by Palestinian interests, not outside demands. He told the news conference with Blair that Palestinians were committed to preventing attacks and said reforms had "not come from pressures from the quartet or any state within it". Abbas complained that Israel had not allowed the Palestinian interior minister to visit the Tel Aviv suicide bomber's home town of Tulkarm in the West Bank to investigate, but promised an unrelenting drive to track down the culprits. Ratcheting up pressure on Syria, which Washington accuses of harbouring militants, Rice cited what she called "firm evidence" the Islamic Jihad group that claimed responsibility for the Tel Aviv bombing had helped plan it from Damascus. Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, whose country was not represented at the London talks, attacked Abbas for trying to win the cooperation of Palestinian militants, not crush them. "I am very sorry the Palestinian leadership is still hesitating over its need to fight terror," Shalom said. "It has to be clear that as long as they don't take the strategic decision to dismantle terrorist infrastructure, we cannot truly advance towards peace," he told Israeli army radio. The London meeting, attended by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan as well as Arab and European foreign ministers, told Israelis and Palestinians they must both meet their obligations under the road map, long stalled by violence. Participants offered Palestinians support for security forces, for parliamentary polls and for efforts to ensure order when Israel removes Jewish settlers from Gaza later this year. In return the Palestinians vowed to pursue security reforms, hold elections on schedule in July and fight corruption. A final statement said the path to peace required direct talks leading to "a safe and secure Israel and a sovereign, independent, viable, democratic and territorially contiguous Palestine, living side by side in peace and security". |
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