Государство Израиль
IN RELATION TO PRESENTATION OF "GENEVA ACCORD" ON PALESTINIAN-ISRAELI SETTLEMENT
Unofficial translation from Russian
PRESS RELEASE
The presentation of the "Geneva Accord" took place on December 1 in Switzerland, which had been jointly drawn up by a group of prominent Palestinian and Israeli public and political figures led by former ministers of the PNA and Israel, Yasser Abd Rabbo and Yossi Beilin.
The agreements and understandings therein recorded bear an informal character, as no official representatives of Israel and the PNA took part in their preparation. Nevertheless, the accord and its presentation have evoked a wide international response, since they have made it possible to demonstrate the ability of Palestinians and Israelis to find mutually acceptable schemes for resolving the most complicated problems and to look for a reasonable alternative to the force-based confrontation.
It is likewise of no small importance that the ideas and suggestions contained in the accord do not run counter to the presently sole real program for advance towards a Palestinian-Israeli settlement that has received an international legal status, the Road Map, which was proposed by the Quartet of International Mediators - Russia, the US, EU and UN - and accepted by Israel and the PNA. As to the "Geneva Accord," it is an attempt to propose detailed solutions to the key problems of a final status for the Palestinian territories that may be called for at the concluding stages in the Road Map implementation.
Moscow notes the positive role which the Swiss Confederation played by assisting the holding of the Palestinian-Israeli meetings. That assessment was contained in the recent message of Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Igor Ivanov to Micheline Calmy-Rey, Chief of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland.
Moscow presumes that the presentation of the "Geneva Accord" will help to overcome the present dead-end situation in Palestinian-Israeli settlement, to restore mutual trust and to move forward towards achieving a historical compromise between Palestinians and Israelis, as a result of which two states, Israel and Palestine, could coexist in peace and security.
December 3, 2003