Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas wants to negotiate peace with Israel and would like to see an offer of confidence building measures, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo told Israel’s President Shimon Peres on Tuesday.
He spoke with Peres after meeting with Abbas in Amman on Saturday and explained to the Israeli president that his country wanted to help ensure that a two-state solution as reached.
"I had a meeting with President Abbas and I felt that he is willing to negotiate a peace process. He asked me to convey a message that he would like to see confidence building measures regarding political prisoners and the problem of the settlements,” Garcia-Margallo said.
“I transmitted to him and to the Jordanian authorities and now to you that you can count on Spain for any help we can offer to bring peace to this city, this city of peace,” Garcia-Margallo said.
He spoke amidst a renewed US push to rekindle direct Israeli Palestinian negotiations, which have been largely frozen since December 2008.
But the Palestinians have insisted that they will only talk with the Israel when it stops West Bank settlement activity and Jewish building in east Jerusalem.
Israel has refused to cede to that request and has instead called on the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table without pre-conditions.
At an Institute for National Security Conference in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro said that direct negotiations were the only way to achieve a two state solution. He urged both Israelis and Palestinians to take steps to create an atmosphere in which those talk could occur.
US Secretary of State John Kerry spoke a new economic initiative for the Palestinians to help create a better climate for talks, when he visited the region two weeks ago. He had promised to unveil that plan last week, but has yet to do so.
During their meeting, Peres told Garcia-Margallo "Peace with the Palestinians is Israel's policy. To overcome the remaining gaps we have to negotiate and I believe that the Palestinian Authority and its President, President Abbas, are a partner that we can and should negotiate with.”
The two men also discussed Syria. Peres told Garcia-Margallo, “the whole world is concerned with [Syria's] chemical weapons stockpile, it is very much on the world's agenda."
He thanked him for Spain’s participation in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, along Israel’s border with Lebanon.
“I want to also stress your 700 UNIFIL members which are very meaningful and important in a very dangerous and complicated situation. This is particularly true with the situation in Syria and the whole world is concerned with the chemical weapons stockpile, it is very much on the world's agenda."
Peres told Garcia-Margallo that he welcomed the news that the Spanish police had arrested two men on Tuesday, suspected of being linked to militant Islamist network al Qaeda.
One man, an Algerian, was arrested in the eastern province of Zaragoza and the other, a Moroccan, in the southern province of Murcia, after a joint operation between Spain, France and Morocco.
Peres said, "By capturing them you saved the lives of many innocent people and demonstrated to terrorists that they will not be able to operate freely.”
Garcia-Margallow said, “We are very aware of what terror is, we had the first attack in 1965 and we had in 2004 the bombing in Madrid which killed 193 Spaniards. We are fighting and doing what we can in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia and now we are also involved in Mali which is a big threat to Europe and in particular Spain."
The two men also spoke about the economic ties between Spain and Israel, which amounts to $2 billion in annual trade.
Peres said the two countries are also working on high-tech research and development agreements.
While in Israel on Tuesday, Garcia-Margallo met with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni. She urged him to support placing Hezbollah on the European Unions list of terrorist organizations.