Foreign Ministry Harshly Criticized Agreement with PLO
VATICAN CITY, FEB 16 (ZENIT).- Israel's response to yesterday's historic signing of an agreement between the Vatican and the Palestinian Liberation Organization was very harsh. A statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed "profound dissatisfaction" with this declaration that addresses the question of Jerusalem. According to the Israeli executive, "Jerusalem was, is, and shall remain the capital of the State of Israel, and no agreement or declaration by these or any other parties will change this fact." The spokesman for the Israeli Ministry went so far as to say that the agreement endangers the peace process in the Middle East.
Joaquin Navarro-Valls, director of the Vatican Press Office, published a statement in response to the above declaration in which he says that the document signed yesterday has nothing to do with the peace process, "but rather regulates the presence and activities of the Catholic Church in territories that depend on the Palestinian Authority."
The Vatican spokesman added: "The only thing this agreement does is to reiterate what was established by pertinent U.N. institutions and by recent agreements between Israeli and Palestinian authorities." Moreover, "as regards the city of Jerusalem, the agreement does not enter into territorial questions or sovereignty issues that affect the two interested parties - Israelis and Palestinians." The document "refers to the universal religious and cultural dimension of the most sacred places of the city, recognized by the international community itself."
This morning Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the Apostolic Nuncio in Israel, gave Eytan Bentsur, the Foreign Ministry's Secretary General, all the clarifications he requested on the matter. The Nuncio expressed the coherence of the Vatican position, according to which all those unilateral decisions or actions that modify the specific identity and sacred character of Jerusalem are morally and juridically unacceptable. Moreover, the petition to establish an internationally guaranteed statute is not a novelty. This is a petition the Vatican proposed years ago in agreement with U.N. resolutions on the matter.
In commenting on the Nuncio's meeting with the Foreign Ministry's General Secretary, Israel's public radio acknowledged that the Vatican-Palestinian Agreement at no time mentions the problem of political sovereignty over Jerusalem and emphasizes the fact that the document confirms in several instances the need to safeguard the rights of any Palestinian citizen, independently of his religion. Thus, in face of Palestine's forthcoming independence, the Vatican has succeeded in obtaining the respect of Palestinian authorities for Catholics in the Holy Land.
Indeed, following the meeting with the Apostolic Nuncio, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs made a complete turnabout in its recriminations to the Vatican. It touched upon the question of Jerusalem, recognized that it must study the text, and rejected possible criticisms the document might contain in regard to free access to the holy places in Jerusalem controlled by Israel. Moreover, it put aside its previous criticisms of important questions and focused on the moment in which the agreement took place, on the eve of the Pope's visit to the Holy Land, which will take place at the end of March.
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