Italy Supports Elections, Wants to Resolve Gajar File
Italy places its "trust" in the upcoming elections and will continue to work for a settlement over the town Gajar in the framework of Resolution 1701, visiting Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said Tuesday.
"Italy deeply supports reconciliation and stability in Lebanon and places its trust in the upcoming legislative elections, which must be free and democratic," said Frattini after talks with Lebanese counterpart Fawzi Salloukh.
On Italy”s involvement with UNIFIL, he said the country will "continue to fulfill its role (as a peacekeeper) to establish stability in the Lebanese south."
"We will also continue to work for a settlement over the town of Gajar which can finally be achieved in the framework of Resolution 1701," he added.
Italy is also exerting efforts to ensure "a settlement over the town of Gajar can finally be reached in the spirit of cooperation within the framework of Resolution 1701," he said.
Israel occupied Gajar in 1967 upon its capture of the Syrian Golan Heights. It withdrew from the village in 2000 when it pulled out of south Lebanon, but re-occupied it in the July 2006 war.
The Israeli army continues to occupy the Lebanese side of the town north of the U.N. border demarcated in 2000, despite a 2006 Israeli cabinet decision to hand the territory over to UNIFIL.
Addressing the Arab-Israeli conflict, Frattini said that as "a friend of Israel" Italy desires a resumption of the peace process according to the "foundations of the Quartet and the Arab peace initiative."
The Saudi-inspired Arab peace initiative, on the table since 2002, offers the Jewish state full normalization of ties in return for its withdrawal from occupied Arab lands.
"We also want to see the establishment of two free and independent states," he said of a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Frattini pointed to efforts by Italy, the European Union and the United States to "encourage the new Israeli government to pursue the path" that will lead to the establishment of two states.
In a meeting with Frattini later, President Michel Suleiman underscored "the significance of the U.S.-EU united position over the Arab initiative."
"Israel must be pressured into accepting the terms of the initiative, which will not remain on the table for long," Suleiman said.
For his part, Frattyini praised the Suleiman”s role in "paving the way for inter-Arab reconciliation talks.