05 July 2007
Hans-Gert Pöttering MEP, the president of the European Parliament, has called for an international Middle East peace conference to be convened under the aegis of the Quartet. ‘’I am convinced that in the current situation, we need a multilateral approach to solve the Mideast conflict,’’ Pöttering told a conference organized by the Socialist group of the European Parliament in Brussels. He gave as a model the Madrid conference in 1999.
The German Christian-Democrat, who visited several Mideast countries last month as part of his first trip abroad since his election at the head of the parliament, urged Israel to support Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and to avoid previous failures by driving him into a corner. ‘’Israel must give Abbas the chance to regain the confidence of 65 percent of the Palestinians who elected him as president in 2006,’’ Pöttering said. He also called on Israel to release the Palestinian legislators and other politicians arrested by Israel but made no reference to the fate of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit kidnapped one year ago by Palestinians near the Gaza Strip. The Brussels two-day conference was attended by politicians, academics and high-level experts.
In a communiqué issued at the end of the conference, the Socialist group’s leadership said that talks between Palestinians should be urgently revived to allow the formation of a new government "in the spirit of reconciliation and national unity".
