Portuguese FM: Biden presents new option for renewed Palestinian talks
"We welcome the signs that are multiplying that there are conditions to relaunch direct conversations between Palestinians and Israel," he said.
By TOVAH LAZAROFFUpdated: DECEMBER 21, 2020 14:10THEN-CANDIDATES Joe Biden and Kamala Harris campaign for president and vice president in Wilmington, Delaware, in August. (photo credit: KEVIN LAMARQUE/REUTERS)
US President-elect Joe Biden's entry into the White House presents a renewed opportunity to relaunched Israeli-Palestinian talks, Portuguese Foreign Minister Santos Silva told his Israeli counterpart Gabi Ashkenazi (Blue and White) when he met him in Jerusalem on Monday morning."We welcome the signs that are multiplying that there are conditions to relaunch direct conversations between Palestinians and Israel," he said."We think that there is now a momentum. We cannot lose this momentum," said Silva, who arrived in Israel last night for a two-day trip.He plans to meet with Israelis in Jerusalem on Monday and then with Palestinians in Ramallah on Tuesday.Silva's trip, his third as foreign minister, comes weeks before Portugal is scheduled in January to take over from Germany the half-year rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union.Silva set out an ambitious plan, in which as the head of the EU council he would help improve ties with Israel by reconvening the long dormant EU-Israel Association Council, which last met in 2012.There is a role for the EU to maximize the opportunities presented by the Trump administration's Abraham Accords, under which normalization deals were brokered between Israel and Arab countries, as well as the regional alliance that it helped foster against Iran.These two factors, along with the incoming Biden administration in Washington, provide the ideal ground for renewed Israeli-Palestinian talks.Portugal wants to help position the EU, to help enhance such efforts, he said.Silva listed those factors. "The new administration in the US, the normalization process, the awareness of the need to counter the influence of Iran" and "the awareness of the need to reinforce the cooperation between the EU and Israel," he said."All this create an opportunity that we have to seize, that we have to grasp. My presence here also means this: the commitment of Portugal as the incoming president of the EU, to make its own contribution to the grasping of this opportunity," Silva explained.Ashkenazi asked Silva to urge the PA in Ramallah to return to the negotiating table, stating that the "door is open" and that only "through direct negotiations without preconditions, can we resolve the conflict."Turning to the topic of Iran, he asked the European Union to withdraw its support from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, known as the Iran deal. It was designed to constrain Iran's nuclear program, but Israel and the Trump administration have argued that it emboldens Iran and must therefore be scrapped in favor of a better deal."The Middle East is divided into two axes; the axis of peace and the axis led by Iran and its proxies, which has chosen violence and maligned activity in the region," he said."There is a common global interest to face up to the Iranian threat. I am glad that we see eye-to-eye on the objective of preventing Iran's nuclear capability. We must prevent them," Ashkenazi said."The Iranian nuclear program undermines the security of the entire region and threatens to change stability in the region," Ashkenazi said."We believe that 2020 is not 2015. We cannot go back in time. The JCPOA in its current form needs to be changed," he said."Europe must make very clear demands on Iran, that are based on reality," including with regard to its missile program as well as its tentacles in Lebanon, Ashkenazi said.
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