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France announces ministerial meeting to prepare for peace conference
France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault announced yesterday that ministers from around 20 countries will be invited to a meeting in Paris at the end of next month in preparation for a peace conference involving Israeli and Palestinian officials later this year.
Earlier this year, Ayrault’s predecessor, Laurent Fabius, announced France’s intention to host an international conference with the goal of agreeing the implementation of a two-state solution. Although the initiative has received only lukewarm support from the United States, and a muted response from both Israeli and Palestinian leaders, Ayrault yesterday announced that an initial meeting of ministers from interested countries will take place in Paris on 30 May. It is designed to be a preparatory meeting without Israeli or Palestinian officials present, in advance of talks between the two sides later in the year.
Ayrault admitted that “The two sides are further apart than ever,” but that “We cannot do nothing… We have to act before it’s too late.” He added: “There is no alternative — the other option is fatalism and I reject that.” Ayrault explained that “There is no other solution to the conflict than establishing two states, one Israeli and the other Palestinian, living side by side in peace and safety with Jerusalem as a shared capital.”
French envoy Pierre Vimont has recently held consultations with Israeli, Palestinian, American, Arab, European and other leaders over the proposed peace initiative. Haaretz claims that the Palestinians are contemplating freezing a push for a United Nations’ Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements, in order to give the French initiative a chance to prosper.
American-led peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) were suspended in April 2014, after the Fatah faction of PA President Mahmoud Abbas formed a unity government with Hamas. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has since repeatedly expressed his willingness to meet with Abbas at any point without preconditions.