Opening many diplomatic fronts
Egyptian diplomacy picks up in the shadow of Israel's provocative actions that all but push the roadmap off the table, writes Nevine Khalil
"Sharon wants to open up many fronts at once, and he is making a mistake," declared President Hosni Mubarak on Sunday referring to the Israeli prime minister. "The Israeli people are the ones who will pay the price for such actions." Speaking to reporters while touring Sixth of October City, Mubarak said that the Israeli government should be more concerned with providing security for its citizens. "All leaderships must work to this end," he said, referring to the Palestinian Authority as well.
Mubarak noted that against the backdrop of upcoming presidential elections in the US, the future of peace efforts in the region is "unpredictable and difficult". He advised the Palestinian leadership to move forward quickly, in order not to "appear to be obstructing progress as the Israelis claim; then we'll see what the Israeli side will do".
Tensions in the region intensified when Israel launched air strikes close to Damascus on 5 October, under the pretext that the area was used as a training camp by Palestinian militants. As the situation flared-up further this week, Egypt warily monitored the Israeli assaults taking place on the other side of the Rafah border between Egypt and the Palestinian territory of the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces launched massive raids in southern Gaza, called "Operation Root Canal", aimed at thwarting weapons smuggling through secret cross-border tunnels.
Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher dismissed Israeli charges that Palestinians were smuggling weapons via tunnels from Egypt, describing the claims as "old and useless allegations that [the Israelis] know very well are without foundation". "We have already said that Egypt is opposed to arms smuggling operations," Maher said.
At the same time, Maher said Egypt "categorically refused" to free Azam Azam, an Israeli Druze convicted in August 1997 of spying for Israel, before he serves out his 15-year jail sentence. "One must stop raising this issue, because Egypt does not make deals on judicial matters," he stressed. Israeli Health Minister Danny Naveh travelled to Egypt on Sunday to visit Azam, whose release the Israeli government has long sought. In August, Sharon said that Egypt could not be involved in the Middle East peace process unless it frees Azam.
If long-time mediators are no longer acceptable to the Israelis, and if the US is yet unable to convince Tel Aviv to comply with its peace plan, new players are willing to take a shot at making peace in the region. Switzerland revealed on Monday that for two years it had been helping Israeli and Palestinian politicians draw up an alternative peace plan and appealed for wider international support. "Switzerland provided logistical and financial help," Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey told reporters, adding that his country's efforts had reached a "high point" in the latest round in Amman.
Israeli opposition politicians, including former Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin and prominent Palestinians including former Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo, met in the Jordanian capital over the weekend to draft a peace agreement. "We have developed a draft final agreement which concerns all the final status questions, without exception," Abed Rabbo told reporters in Cairo on Monday. The Geneva Agreement, which fits into phase three of the roadmap and is expected to contain unprecedented detail, may be signed in Switzerland in early November. According to Israeli press reports, the two sides reached compromise formulas for Jerusalem, the holy sites, Palestinian statehood, Jewish settlements, recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, security, and the right of return of Palestinian refugees.
"We hope the Quartet will support this initiative," said Urs Ziswiler, a senior adviser to the Swiss foreign minister who attended the meetings. The Swiss proposal was the private initiative of an assistant professor at the University of Geneva and puts Switzerland in the role of facilitator as it not only provided financial and logistical support; Swiss diplomats also acted as go- betweens on some occasions between the parties. Diplomats from the European Union, Canada, Japan and Norway are reported to have attended at different stages.
Meanwhile, Russia could soon be proposing an international conference for the Middle East to include all possible tracks towards peace. Russia's former Middle East envoy Andrei Vdovin, visiting Egypt with his successor Alexander Kalugin on Monday, spoke to reporters about the necessity "to stop the deterioration of the situation in the Middle East", adding that there were "several Russian ideas to help".
After meeting with Maher, Vdovin indicated that Moscow may propose an international conference to discuss comprehensive solutions on the Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese tracks.
Another idea is for the roadmap to be adopted as a UN Security Council resolution in order to make it legally binding for both sides. While the roadmap initiative was drafted by the diplomatic Quartet -- the US, EU, Russia and the UN -- the US has taken the lead on it. Vdovin also believes that a "strong mechanism" for implementing the roadmap should be created.
As is the trouble with previous and current peace initiatives, the Palestinian and Israeli leadership will determine the success or failure of any peace plan. "It's a risky investment," noted Calmy-Rey. The Palestinians have indicated that they are ready to accept the Swiss peace plan, according to Abed Rabbo, who was in Cairo on Monday for three-way talks with Maher and Beilin on the Geneva Agreement. The Palestinian and Israeli figures also met with President Mubarak's chief political adviser, Osama El-Baz. "The Palestinian Authority supports our initiative," Abed Rabbo told reporters. Israeli officials refused the plan out of hand.
"The Israelis who put their names to the plan are marginal people who represent nobody but themselves, and who paid the price for that at the last elections," Israeli Education Minister Limor Livnat told Israeli public radio on Monday. "These people are the playthings of Yasser Arafat." But Beilin, who was closely involved in the 1993 Oslo Accords, believes that the Swiss plan will cause "a big revolution" in the Middle East.
But not all observers are optimistic about the situation in the region. European Commission President Romano Prodi met with Mubarak on Sunday, during which they "shared deep pessimism on the evolution of the situation in the Middle East," according to Prodi. "We do not see any light in the near future" to restore calm in the Palestinian territories, he said. One reason for this gloomy outlook, Prodi told reporters after the meeting, is because "we don't see any pressure by the United States" on the parties to implement the roadmap. "There is a roadmap but there is no way to put it into practice and there is no will to start a concrete action," he added.
Like the Russians, Prodi believes that an "increase in the authority of the UN at this moment will help the peace process".
Prodi described Israel's construction of a security wall across Palestinian land as "the wrong answer to the problem", and noted that Israel's bombing of Syria last week was "a very dangerous type of action".
On the topic of Iraq, Prodi said that "the situation has been worsening and it is difficult to find a solution if the Iraqi people are not involved in the [political] process and the UN doesn't take a role." He added that the European Union was ready to participate in reconstruction efforts, but its prerequisites are "a real role" for the United Nations and an increased role for the Iraqi people.
The day after Prodi was in Cairo, Maher met with Massoud Barzani, a prominent Kurdish member of the US-appointed Iraqi Interim Governing Council (IGC) to discuss the situation in the war-torn country. "We asked for Egypt's political and moral support for the Interim Governing Council, and its help for the Iraqi people so it can overcome its problems," Barzani told reporters after the talks.
The two officials also discussed Turkey's decision to send 10,000 peacekeeping troops into Iraq for a 12-month period -- a move which was solicited by the US occupying forces, but opposed by several IGC members, including Barzani. Iraqi Kurds are suspicious of Turkey because it fought a long war against ethnic Kurds in eastern Turkey and has mounted military operations into northern Iraq in the past.
