Middle East: Opening address by High Representative/Vice President Josep Borrell at the Ministerial side event on the Peace Process and the Two State Solution

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Excellencies, we have been talking a lot about the horrors of today.

Certainly, we have to address them. But we must also try to avoid the horrors of tomorrow, by working to put an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Let nobody say: "This is not the right time for the Two-State Solution". When was it "the right time"? How many people must die before it is "the right time"?

Almost the entire world calls for the Two-State Solution.

The [United Nations] General Assembly, the Security Council - Prince Faisal [bin Farhan Al Saud, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Saudi Arabia] has recalled [those over] 135 countries recognising Palestine - the International Court of Justice; all of them call for the Two-State Solution.

Yet, it is not happening.

That harms Palestinians, Israelis, the region, international law, and our global future.

If the Two-State Solution is not the solution, then which is the solution? Which is the alternative solution? Therefore, today my co-host - Prince Faisal - and I, we propose that all those who want to advance in the Two-State Solution to join hands in a global alliance to help to implement it.

From the European Union's viewpoint, that global alliance must be an umbrella under which all [partners] can place whatever they want to do in order to contribute, to incentivise, to help, to encourage, to push, to envisage, to elaborate, and to act towards the implementation of the Two-State Solution.

Even though we all agree that there is not another possible solution, we do not agree on how and when to implement that only solution.

Even in the European Union we have different views. But all of us, European Union and non-European Union, I think that we have to contribute to this realisation.

From the unprecedented package of political, economic, and security support to the parties, that the European Union promised already 11 years ago, to the global support for Palestinian state-building, to our contributions to regional security, to a concrete plan for regional cooperation and integration.

It is up to Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate their own peace, but they will not do it alone. They need all of us to help them to get there. By preparing the ground for the bridge they need to build, by offering both carrots and sticks, and by us joining forces as a practical, forward-looking global alliance.

This has to be the delivery of today, the creation of a global alliance to implement the Palestinian state.

I thank my friend, Prince Faisal, for offering to host the first of the practical, working-level follow-up meetings in Riyadh, where we should identify the core elements of what we can all do towards that implementation, and to face and oppose to the ones who do not want it.

I offer to hold a second meeting in Brussels in November, to focus on one of the actions items to be identified in today's discussions.

I welcome the commitment of my partners today to host further follow-up meetings, be it in Amman, in Ankara, in Cairo, in Oslo, elsewhere.

I hope that these meetings will identify for particular topics the concrete elements of our contribution towards implementation of the two states - well, of the Palestinian state, because the other state has already been implemented.

The final responsibility is for the Israelis and Palestinians but we, their friends and potential friends, we also have our own responsibility.

We have a responsibility to those thousands and thousands of innocent children who were killed because some said: "well, it is not the right time to start thinking of this solution."

Yes, it is. Otherwise, many other children will die before it becomes too late.

Thank you.

Answer by the High Representative to questions from the media after the meeting

Q&A

Q: Your Excellency, yesterday your countries, the European Union, France, the United States, Qatar and the [United Arab] Emirates have requested a 21-day call for truce. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already just said on the plane and just outside of the plane that he was rejecting it. What are your reactions?

I just want to reiterate that, yesterday, the 27 Member States of the European Union have written a statement on exactly the same line, as the one that was forged by the United States and France and joined by other states. The war is not a solution, and these attacks against Lebanon have been creating such a great number of civilian casualties that cannot just be justified by the right of self-defence. Certainly, the right of self-defence exists for everyone, also for Israel. But the way this war is being conducted, by this high number of strikes from air, from land, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to leave their countries, their houses - which have been destroyed, so they will not have anywhere to go back - is certainly not the way to ensure the security of Israel. I think it is just the contrary. So, I can only reiterate the call of the Member States of the European Union for a ceasefire and to look for the only possible solution, which is the implementation of the agreed United Nations resolution.

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