The long-anticipated, internationally backed, "performance-based and goal-driven road map" to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was formally presented to the sides yesterday.
U.S. Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer brought the document, which was finalized in December, to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Jerusalem office. The four local representatives of the Quartet - the U.S., UN, EU and Russia - delivered the document to Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) at his Department for Negotiations, a research institute he established in Ramallah. Accepting the road map alongside Abu Mazen was Palestinian Minister for External Affairs Nabil Sha'ath.
Kurtzer spent only a few minutes with Sharon and said that Israel could continue offering its comments regarding the plan, which foresees three stages leading to a full two-state solution, starting with an end to Palestinian terrorism and a freeze on Israeli settlements and other steps to normalize conditions for the Palestinians. This will be followed by negotiations leading to a Palestinian state with provisional borders, and then final status talks leading to a two-state solution by the end of 2005.
But the plan's execution is not driven by a timetable. Rather, the Quartet has established four monitoring groups to record progress by both sides for their separate contributions to the process. The Americans will monitor the security issues.
A brief statement released by Sharon's office after the meeting with Kurtzer said the document was given to Israel for its further comments on the formulation of the plan. Israel's main demand for a change in the road map is that the process begin with the Palestinians declaring they are dropping their demand for a right of return for refugees and that an "end to the conflict" statement be issued.
After receiving the document, Sharon spoke on the phone with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, telling the American that Abu Mazen will have to take steps agains terror. "The goal is not a cease-fire, but a real war against terror, and the dismantling of the terror organizations," Sharon said.
Sources in the PMO said later that Powell would be coming to Jerusalem and Ramallah next week for talks with Sharon and Abu Mazen. He will not meet with PA Chairman Yasser Arafat.
In Ramallah, U.S. Acting Consul General in Jerusalem Jeff Platman, UN Middle East Envoy Terje Larsen, EU Middle East Envoy Miguel Moratinos and Russian Envoy Andrei Vodobin presented the document to the Palestinians.
Platman said the only change in the document from the one authored in December was the erasure of the word draft. Since December, the road map has awaited the Israeli elections and then the Palestinian prime minister's formation of a new government.
Moratinos said the Quartet would work with both sides to cease violence and reach peace. Larsen emphasized the road map is not a security plan, like the Mitchell Report or the Tenet working plan, but an overall plan meant to implement a two-state solution. Vodobin emphasized that the real condition for the road map's success is that there be goodwill on both sides.
Sha'ath said the delivery of the road map was the "fulfillment of a promise made to the Palestinians to hand over the road map once a Palestinian government was in place, and now the map must be implemented without changes, to turn it into a fact."
On the Israeli side, opposition to the road map came from the right, including ministers inside the government, such as National Religious Party Chairman Effi Eitam, who called it "nonsense," and said the "the real road map" was the terror attack in Tel Aviv. But former prime minister Shimon Pres called on the government to adopt the road map, saying "an historic strategic opportunity to advance the process has been created."
On the Palestinian side, there was vehement criticism of the road map from Hamas, which said it was a "plot" meant to end the intifada without any Palestinian gains, and that "the only way for the Palestinians to achieve national liberation is through military resistance." A leaflet issued by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine called the road map "a fraud," and attacked Abu Mazen's plans to collect weapons from the armed factions in the Palestinian areas
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