Bernard Kouchner (Fr) says to Israel: “open the doors”
(B2) After the dinner of the Foreign Ministers of the 27, with their Israeli counterpart, Tzipi Livni, in addition to the official press conference (with the EU presidency), some ministers entrusted - often aside - to the journalists who were in the right place their impressions. It was late, everyone was in a hurry to get home. And we were only a few journalists (AFP, Radio France, an Arab colleague) when the French minister, Bernard Kouchner — who also chairs the UN Security Council (for a few more days) — passed by. Just enough time for a quick exchange of questions (asked by AFP and myself) to gather his first impressions. Here is the result :
• What did you get?
“We got to offer the same insistent request, open the doors. Humanitarian aid must absolutely pass; the definition of “humanitarian” aid being, from my point of view, very political and it is an old debate. It is absolutely essential. We cannot pretend that the ceasefire does not exist and go back to what happened before. This is what we asked for, the 27 with one voice, united. We prayed, begged for the doors to open. Me Livini replied that she was very surprised and that, yes, the humanitarian aid should pass, we will see on Thursday (January 22).
• Under what control?
We can have the control we want. We are ready to control, we said. The Israelis and Egyptians are surely ready to control too. It does not matter. For the moment, the doors are closed, much more closed than one would think. For example, the French hospital and the medical team are in Rafah. We send them to Kerem Shalom. And we send them back to Rafah. It's not bearable. We cannot, at the same time, be very satisfied that the rockets are no longer falling on Israel, that the Israeli army is withdrawing and acting as if nothing had happened. Let's see...
• Was there a second point for the Europeans, the reopening of border posts, in particular Rafah?
We absolutely talked about only one point (NB: humanitarian aid).
• Does humanitarian aid also mean opening borders?
You can use any word you want. Help is to stop access to life from being possible. For me, humanitarian aid, I include that in a very large, political volume. (…) You know every day is a fight. (yesterday – Wednesday), we spoke with Me Livni, we listened to him. On Sunday, we talk with our Arab friends. And we will listen to them. And then we will decide at the Council on Monday.
• And the beginning of a dialogue with Hamas?
We are not talking to Hamas. Finally, we speak through an intermediary, you know very well what is at stake in this long negotiation. It's obvious that if they participate in any peace process - for example the PLO who asks that there is not even a semblance of a national government but of unity, or something like that - we will be ready since Hamas offers prospects for negotiation and peace like everyone else, to be considered as an interlocutor…. But we're not needed now.
(NGV)
(also published in Europolitics - photo: Council of the EU)
