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| Sunday, 11 January 2004 |
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Palestinians insist on right to declare state RAMALLAH, West Bank, Saturday (Reuters) A top Palestinian decision-making body on Saturday voiced its right to unilaterally declare a state in the West Bank and Gaza amid Israeli threats to take stand-alone measures of its own. The executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), in a Friday meeting, also named Arab East Jerusalem, seized by Israel in 1967 and annexed in a move rejected internationally, as the capital of a Palestinian state. "The Palestinian leadership, in line with international legitimacy and signed agreements...has the right to declare a independent democratic Palestine on all the territories that were occupied (by Israel) since 1967," the PLO executive committee said in a statement. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said he would pursue a unilateral plan to quit parts of the West Bank should a U.S.-backed "road map" to peace collapse. The plan would leave Palestinians with much less territory for a state than they would get through negotiations, he said. Responding to Sharon's threats, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie on Thursday raised the possibility of opting for one state with equal rights for Palestinians and Israelis. Qurie's proposal and the PLO Executive Committee statement underscored Palestinian concerns over Sharon's unilateral plan. Zalman Shoval, Sharon's foreign policy adviser, on Saturday rejected both Palestinian moves, saying any declaration of a state without an accord "would be in clear violation not only of international law, but also of the road map, which the Palestinians have supposedly accepted." "Any unilateral declaration of this sort would not be recognised by the international community and would also necessitate appropriate counter steps by Israel," he told Reuters. PLO executive committee member Qais Abu Layla said that the Palestinians statement intended to show support for a two-state solution and did not necessarily mean Palestinians would exercise their right to declare a state. Sharon has indicated he hopes to pre-empt any binational state such as that raised by Qurie by building a mass barrier that cuts into the West Bank and by vacating smaller, more remote settlements left outside its parameter. Palestinians call the barrier a land grab and a ploy to evade the road map that calls for a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza beside a secure Israel by 2005. Israel says the barrier is necessary to keep out suicide bombers, who have killed scores of Israelis since the outbreak of violence three years ago. Qurie on Thursday said Sharon's threats to take unilateral steps, along with the accelerated construction of the barrier, could force Palestinians to go to a one-state solution. "This is, of course, utterly ridiculous," Shoval said. "The Jewish people didn't recreate their state in order to have a binational state with the Arabs." U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on Friday said Washington remained committed to a two-state solution. |
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