France sceptical about quartet ability to get Mideast peace

The French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe expressed scepticism Tuesday on the ability of the Middle East Quartet to move peace forward in the region and called for a "change of method" and a "more collective approach" to ending the conflict. "To put it bluntly, we do not believe that the Quartet in its current make-up will really be able to move things," Juppe told the Foreign Affairs Commission in the French parliament,reported the Kuwaiti news age KUNA. "We need to associate other actors beyond the Quartet in this process, notably the Permanent Members of the Security Council, Europe or the major European countries and the major actors in the region," Juppe stated. He said that if direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians were restarted, Paris would be willing to host a second Palestinian Donor conference, which would be "the opportunity to renew international support for the future Palestinian State". The Foreign Minister affirmed that the Palestinians were ready to govern their own State and this had been attested by major international institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Juppe added that France continued to support the initiative it launched at the UN General Assembly last month whereby Palestine would be granted "non-member status" by the UN. This is short of the Palestinian efforts to get full-member recognition by the UN Security Council which is soon due to address that demand. Juppe said that he did not believe there was sufficient support in the Security Council for the Palestinian demand, which needs nine out of fifteen votes, and he remarked that even if this happened the United States has vowed to veto the effort. He said if the UN General Assembly grants, as expected, the Palestinians non-member status, this would be "an important step towards the creation of their State and avoid the risks linked with an undertaking in the Security Council, which is an impasse". Juppe noted that "Israel has rejected our initiative as it is opposed to any recourse to the United Nations". The French chief diplomat has reiterated France''s condemnation of Israeli settlement-building as this is counter-productive to peace efforts and the resumption of dialogue.