Controversy over EU stance on east Jerusalem

(BRUSSELS) - Efforts by European nations to recognise Arab east Jerusalem as capital of a future Palestinian state fed a growing row Monday, with Israel denouncing the initiative and opposition within the EU.

Luxembourg's foreign minister Jean Asselborn was the latest European official to stoke the flames of controversy.

East Jerusalem is "not part of Israel," he said ahead of a meeting with his EU counterparts in Brussels.

"We all recognise, in discussions, that east Jerusalem is occupied, And if it is occupied then it is not part of Israel," Asselborn told reporters as he arrived for the talks in Brussels.

"I don't understand how Israel fails to recognise that Palestine is composed of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem," he added, pleading for Europe and the US to use "clear language" when pronouncing on the issue.

However Europe does not speak with a single voice on east Jerusalem, which Israel invaded and occupied in 1967 and subsequently annexed.

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini upon his arrival for the talks, said unilateral pronouncements should be avoided.

"We support anything which encourages the two parties to sit down at the negotiating table again," he said.

In a first draft of a statement drawn up by the Swedish EU presidency for a European Union summit at the end of the week, Europe's leaders spoke in favour of "a viable state of Palestine comprising the West Bank and Gaza and with east Jerusalem as its capital."

Such wording angered Israel whose foreign ministry said it harmed Europe's ability to play a mediating role in the Middle East.

"The process being led by (current EU president) Sweden harms the European Union's ability to take part as a significant mediator in the political process between Israel and the Palestinians," the Israeli foreign ministry said in a statement.

A subsequent version of the draft text, seen by AFP Monday, drops the explicit reference to east Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

"A way must be found, through negotiations, to resolve the status of Jerusalem as the future capital of two states," according to the revised text, which remains subject to change before the EU heads of state and government meet in the Belgian capital on Thursday and Friday.

On Monday Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni called the text "a mistake" in an interview with French daily Le Parisien.

"If it is in the interests of both parties to resume dialogue, it is up to them to take the decisions, not the European Union," he said.

Israel considers Jerusalem to be its indivisible and eternal capital.

Meanwhile scores of Palestinians protested in front of the French and Swedish consulates in Jerusalem Monday to supported the EU presidency's initiative on east Jerusalem.

A confidential report by EU heads of mission in Jerusalem last week accused Israel of actively pursuing the annexation of the city's east and undermining hopes for peace with Palestinians.

"Israel is, by practical means, actively pursuing its illegal annexation of east Jerusalem by weakening the Palestinian community in the city, impeding Palestinian urban developments and ultimately separating east Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank," it said.

In Jordan, King Abdullah II on Sunday urged the European Union to help put an end to Israeli settlement building in Jerusalem.

The king also hailed the proposal that east Jerusalem should become the capital of a future Palestinian state as part of a Middle East peace deal.

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