EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton told a meeting of the UN Security Council in New York “we believe that there is an urgent need for renewed, structured and substantial peace efforts in 2013” in the Middle East as she heralded the EU’s contribution to international peace and security.
Insisting the EU’s unique access to “a wide range of instruments” made its “direct involvement in international negotiations, including mediation, on behalf of the international community”, she committed the EU’s efforts to working “with all international partners, including the UN and the League of Arab States” to end the impasse in direct peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, which have lain dormant since 2010.
Hailing the “crucial” involvement of relevant regional players, most notably including Egypt following its successful mediation efforts to bring about the ceasefire in Gaza last November, she added that the EU would “continue to work with all those who are willing to join the quest for peace, stability and prosperity in the Middle East”.
Ashton made the remarks in her address to the Security Council shortly after her arrival in the US Wednesday, where an advance statement from her office claimed she would brief the council “on strengthening cooperation between the European Union and the United Nations to contribute to international peace and security”.
Ashton met later in Washington with the new Secretary of State John Kerry. The Middle East peace process and the forthcoming resumption of international negotiations with Iran in Kazakhstan on February 26 featured high on the agenda of talks.
Ahead of their meeting, Kerry spoke of his commitment to the peace process in a joint press conference with his Jordanian counterpart Nasser Judeh, confirming the pair had discussed “the enduring challenge of bringing peace to the Middle East”, as well as their “mutual commitment to continue to work on that process. And I emphasized to him my personal commitment to do so as Secretary of State”.
As Judeh praised Kerry’s extensive foreign policy experience as making him the ideal candidate to “provide the much-needed drive to reinvigorate Palestinian-Israeli negotiations leading to the realization of the two-state solution”, despite conceding that “the window of opportunity on this is closing fast” in light of a myriad of previous “failed approaches, false starts, media events”, Kerry confessed himself to be something of “an optimist” on the issue.
“If I weren’t an optimist, I wouldn’t have taken this job. And I have been engaged in, in one way or another, in – as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee in the initiatives through many presidents, through many secretaries of state, and in many discussions that I’ve had with people over the years, 29 years now, in the 29th year. I have learned that often things are not as they appear to be, and they’re not as bleak as they may seem if you approach things openly, honestly, creatively, and build on relationships,” he continued.
“The reason I called Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas and President Peres, my first calls, was to emphasize that this is of a concern, and to listen to them, as to whether or not they believed there might be some things that we could do. In every case, there are hopes that there are things that we can do.”
Previewing President Barack Obama’s forthcoming Spring tour of Israel, he added that “everybody understands that the United States of America is an indispensible entity with respect to that process. I understand that. The President understands that. And the President is not prepared, at this point in time, to do more than to listen to the parties, which is why he has announced he’s going to go to Israel. It affords him an opportunity to listen. And I think we start out by listening and get a sense of what the current state of possibilities are and then begin to make some choices”.
However, he cautioned, “it would be a huge mistake, almost an arrogant step, to suddenly be announcing this and that without listening first, so that’s what I intend to do, that’s what the President intends to do. And – but we are committed, as I’ve said to Minister Judeh and to others, to explore every possibility. The window is closing on this possibility. The region knows it. All the leaders I’ve talked to in the region have brought this topic up as a prime topic. And so it deserves our utmost consideration, and it will get that”.