Saturday, 18 July 2009
Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas has just concluded his two day visit to Turkey where he and Turkish President Abdullah Gul addressed the creation of a Palestinian state and spoke of how to achieve peace in the region.
On Friday, Gul addressed the call by the European Union to meet a deadline for the creation of the new state and gave heed that pushing for a structured timeline could be counterproductive.
Last week, EU foreign policy Chief Javier Solana, insisted on a target date to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and added that if both sides did not meet the end objective, the Security Council should declare a Palestinian state under a settlement backed by the international community.
At a joint press conference, President Gul's response to this initiative was, "But we believe that any efforts to achieve that without the consent of the main players will not be of any use, and can even be harmful."
Gul also reiterated that Turkey supports the conception of an independent Palestinian state. He proclaimed that Turkey, "will do its best," in offering any assistance on the issue at the United Nations since Turkey currently holds a non-permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council.
The Palestinian leader also renewed his plea for Israel to abide by the 2003, "roadmap" which was adopted internationally in which Israel halts all settlement activity and Palestinians stop all attacks on Israel.
Palestine will not recommence peace talks unless settlement activity ceases in the West Bank which is in line with U.S. demands but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected.
During his stay, Abbas also attended the opening ceremony of the new Palestinian mission building in Ankara which was funded by the Turkish government.
By Stacy Maruskin (JTW)
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Saturday, 18 July 2009
Journal of Turkish Weekly
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