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Comments (0)The European Union is set to officially call for Jerusalem to be divided and serve as the capitals of both Israel and Palestine.
The Israeli daily Ha’aretz said the declaration will take place next week, according to a draft document authored by Sweden obtained by the newspaper. Sweden serves as president of the European Union, a rotating position, until January.
The declaration is expected to be introduced Dec. 7 at a meeting in Brussels of EU foreign ministers that was scheduled to discuss the peace process and issue a statement on the body’s Middle East policy. The document also implies that the European Union would recognize a unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood, Ha’aretz reported.
In a statement, the Israeli Foreign Ministry condemned the expected EU move.
“After the important steps taken by the government of Israel to enable the resumption of negotiations with the Palestinians, the European Union must now exert pressure on the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table,” the statement said, referring notably to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu placing a 10-month freeze on West Bank settlement construction. “Steps like those being led by Sweden only contribute to the opposite effect.”
Iranian Lawmakers Threaten IAEA
Iran’s parliament threatened to reduce its cooperation with the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency.
Sunday’s call by Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani to “form a new type of relationship with the West,” backed by a statement from lawmakers read in parliament, comes two days after the International Atomic Energy Agency board of governors voted to censure Iran for building a nuclear enrichment facility in secret and demanded it freeze its nuclear enrichment program.
“If the West continues to pressure us, then parliament can review Iran’s cooperation level with the IAEA,” Larijani said.
The Iranian parliament ordered the government in 2006 to cease cooperation with the IAEA after the agency reported it to the U.N. Security Council, according to reports.
Last Friday’s IAEA resolution, which passed 25-3 with six abstentions, was significant because it was backed by all six major world powers, including Russia and China. Both of those countries have been reluctant to go along with Western efforts to sanction Iran for its nuclear program, although it remains unclear if the vote signaled that Russia and China would support further punitive measures.
The only three nations to vote against the resolution were Cuba, Venezuela and Malaysia.
Iran’s chief delegate to the atomic agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, told the meeting that the resolution would not change Iran’s plans, according to media reports.
“Neither resolutions of the board of governors nor those of the United Nations Security Council, neither sanctions nor the threat of military attacks, can interrupt peaceful nuclear activities in Iran, even a second,” he said in remarks made available to reporters.
Israel commended the passage of the resolution.
“The importance of the resolution is in its determination that Iran is continuing to defy the resolutions of both the Security Council and the IAEA board of governors, as well as its expression of concern over the fact that Iran is building its enrichment facility in Qom in secret,” said Israeli Embassy spokesman Jonathan Peled. “The demand to immediately halt the construction of this facility is of extreme importance.”
On Nov. 26, IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei told a meeting of the agency’s 35-nation board of governors that the IAEA investigation into Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program is at “a dead end” due to Iran’s lack of cooperation.
ElBaradei is stepping down Monday as agency chief.
Iran last week rejected a plan brokered by the Vienna-based agency, under which Iran would relinquish the bulk of the uranium it had enriched to low levels, sending it to Russia and then France for further enrichment; it then would be returned to Iran. Six world powers, including the United States, had endorsed the deal.
In a counter-offer, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said in a news conference Nov. 24 that Tehran would send its low-enriched uranium abroad for further enrichment if it received 20 percent pure uranium processed abroad at the same time as a guarantee, according to reports.
Medvedev Sees Dwindling Anti-Semitism in Russia
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told a delegation of Jewish leaders that anti-Semitism in the country “is becoming much less prevalent.”
Medvedev and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with a chief rabbi of Russia, Berel Lazar, and the president of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, Alexander Boroda, as well as representatives of the European Jewish Congress, on Nov. 26, according to the Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS and Baltic Countries.
In discussing anti-Semitism, Medvedev said, “I would certainly not go so far as to say that the situation is ideal, but it has become known that anti-Semitism will simply not be tolerated in the political environment. No sane politician today would make any statements incriminating him in this manner.”
Medvedev praised the Jewish community’s activities in Russia and expressed his support for the Jewish community’s plan to build a Russian Jewish Museum of Tolerance in Moscow.
Medvedev also instructed his administration to look into Lazar’s proposal to recognize the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Jan. 27, as a national holiday.