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30 November 2004
JERUSALEM- Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos will become the latest top diplomat to hold talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders this week in a bid to revive the moribund Middle East peace process.
Moratinos, the European Union’s former envoy to the region, was scheduled to arrive in Israel on Wednesday where he will meet Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom and Labour opposition leader Shimon Peres, according to an Israeli foreign ministry statement.
Palestinian sources said Moratinos was also expected to hold talks in the West Bank on Friday with PLO chairman Mahmud Abbas and prime minister Ahmed Qorei.
His scheduled talks with the Palestinian and Israeli leadership follow similar trips by US Secretary of State Colin Powell, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw as part of a new push for peace in the aftermath of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s death.
In his time as EU envoy, Moratinos managed to irritate Sharon by continuing to visit Arafat in his shattered compound at Ramallah, even though Israel had dismissed him as an “irrelevance”.
[Copyright EFE with Expatica]
Subject: Spanish news