Following are excerpts from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting today (Sunday), 28.6.09:
"Last Thursday, I returned from an important and successful round of talks with Italian and French leaders. The goal of the visit was to brief them on our principles for a peaceful solution as I expressed them in my Bar-Ilan University speech, and persuade them that this is the correct, just and practical path to achieve an agreement between us and the Palestinians.
Over three days, I met with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon and French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, as well as with leading Italian and French opinion-makers and commentators, and I found that my interlocutors were attentive. Regarding the principles that we presented, I saw that there was a genuine international willingness to accept them as foundations for peace.
The first principle is the need for explicit Palestinian recognition of the State of Israel as the national state of the Jewish People. The second need is the demilitarization of a Palestinian state in such a manner that all of Israel's security needs will be met. The third item is that there must be international backing of these security arrangements in the form of explicit international guarantees. The fourth item is that the problem of refugees must be resolved outside the borders of Israel. The fifth item is the need that the agreement be an end to the conflict. This is to say that the Palestinians will not be able to raise additional claims following the signing of a peace agreement.
These principles are very solid and were raised very clearly by myself and by those in my delegation, which included Finance Minister Dr. Yuval Steinitz and Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan, and I think, I know, that they expressed a very broad national consensus."
