Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat called Wednesday on the European Union to make every possible effort to determine the goal of President George W Bush's proposed international conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to dpa. This could be achieved, he told reporters after meeting EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, by "putting in place implementation mechanisms, schedules and monitoring teams to implement the Arab initiative, President Bush's vision, the Roadmap peace plan, and all signed agreements." He stressed that restoring the credibility of the peace process did not require new initiatives, but the implementation of previous ones. Bush announced the conference on Monday night, saying it was for all parties which support a two-state solution to the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. Erekat also urged the European Union to resume aid to the Palestinian people on all levels, a point taken up by Prime Minister- designate Salam Fayyad, who said after meeting the European envoy that they had discussed the need for European aid to the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people. "We discussed several important issues on all levels, as well as the importance of launching a real peace process that will lead to the results we all expect," said Fayyad, who described his talks with Solana as "positive and good". Solana, making another visit to Israel and the Palestinian areas ahead of a meeting Thursday of the so-called Quartet of the US, the EU, the UN and Russia, said the Union "has been playing an important role in putting forward a political process, and we will continue this role in any event that may take place." He said the EU would like Bush's mooted international conference to "be an important step forward toward ending the (Israeli) occupation and reaching a solution." President Mahmoud Abbas, who met with Solana after the diplomat's talks with Fayyad, said the Palestinian Authority was "satisfied" with the aid it was receiving from the EU. The international community has begun pledging aid to the Palestinians again, following Abbas' dismissal of the Hamas-led unity government last month after the Islamist movement assumed control of the Gaza Strip in five days of savage fighting with gunmen loyal to the president's Fatah party. Western countries, led by the United States, had imposed a crippling diplomatic and economic boycott on the Palestinian government after Hamas won power in 2006 and refused demands to renounce violence or change its charter to accept Israel's right to exist. Abbas said he told Solana that what had transpired in the Strip during the violence which led to the Hamas takeover was "a coup." "There will not be any talks with the coup-makers, unless they remove the results and reverse the acts committed by their hands," he said. He said he discussed an upcoming meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization Central Committee , during which the issue of early presidential and legislative elections would be discussed. Early elections, he said, could be called by a presidential decree "and we will be working on these decrees very soon."
