EU turns up the heat on Israel over Jerusalem

Dec 7, 2009, 14:58 GMT

Brussels - European Union foreign ministers turned up the heat on Israel on Monday, pushing for Palestinian rights over East Jerusalem despite Israeli protests.

Leaked drafts of the ministers' joint statement, set for approval on Tuesday, have caused outrage in Israel, where they have been interpreted as a call for the partition of Jerusalem.

'Palestine, that is Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. That was not decided in Brussels or in Stockholm: it was decided in the UN years and years and years ago,' Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said as he arrived for talks in Brussels with EU peers.

EU foreign ministers were set to debate the question of the Middle East peace process on Tuesday as part of their year-end review of foreign-policy issues.

With progress in the peace talks stalled, ministers were expected to take an unusually sharp tone with both sides.

'The time has come to speak clear words and raise the pressure on both sides, because it is not acceptable that nothing moves in the Middle East,' Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger said.

Asselborn warned that if the EU does not take a firm line, 'it will come to an explosion' in the conflict zone.

Ahead of the EU meeting, attention focused on reports of a Swedish proposal stressing the future of Jerusalem as the capital of both Israel and a Palestinian state.

Sweden currently holds the EU's rotating presidency. Swedish diplomats said that the proposal, details of which have not been confirmed, was drawn up in consultation with EU members.

'It's not such a spectacular initiative. It's just something which everyone who has ever dealt with Israel knows,' Asselborn said.

Israeli officials reacted angrily to the alleged proposal, saying that it defined East Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state, and therefore proposed a de facto partition of the city.

'The Europeans will not dictate the results of the peace process. The Swedish initiative is dangerous and it may hinder the efforts to resume negotiations by radicalizing the Palestinian stance,' Israel's deputy foreign minister, Daniel Ayalon, told Israeli website Ynet.

The EU has repeatedly urged Israel to stop building settlements, which Europe considers illegal, in East Jerusalem.

The bloc has also regularly condemned attacks by Palestinian militants on Israeli targets.