Posted on 10/25/2005 2:34:30 PM PDT by andyk
OTTAWA -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice suggested Tuesday that Israel must loosen controls at border crossings to allow freer passage for Palestinians and economic development in areas that would one day be an independent Palestinian state.
Rice spoke in the Canadian capital a day after reports that a top Mideast envoy had criticized Israel for moving too slowly on negotiations to open borders around the Gaza Strip.
Israel withdrew troops and settlers from Gaza over the summer after nearly 30 years. The territory, now under Palestinian control, is on the other side of Israel from the larger Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank, and Palestinians must cross Israel or go through Egypt to pass between the two areas.
"It is very clear that the crossings issues need to get resolved," Rice said.
She did not specifically call on Israel to change its border policies, but did not dispute the findings of envoy James Wolfensohn that Israel was stalling in the restoration of movement across the borders.
Wolfensohn, the former World Bank president now working as a special envoy on behalf of the United States and other foreign mediators, said the delay was preventing him from moving on to larger reconstruction efforts, such as tourism, agriculture and industrial projects.
Borders "need to get freed up so that the kind of economic program we all want to see in the Palestinian territories" can begin, Rice said.
Wolfensohn is "simply asking the parties to do everything they can now that the Israelis are out of the Gaza to make sure that the Gaza is going to be a place where Palestinians can see a different kind of life and therefore start to build the foundations for a Palestinian state," she said.
In an Oct. 17 letter to the U.N. secretary-general obtained by The Associated Press, Wolfensohn said Israel was behaving almost as if the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip never happened.
Without dramatic progress soon, a rare chance to revive Gaza's shattered economy - and the peace process - will be lost, he said.
Israel closed the Rafah crossing into Egypt, Gaza's main link to the outside world, shortly before it withdrew from Gaza. It also has severely restricted the passage of Palestinian laborers and goods in and out of Israel, the main Palestinian export market, since a wave of rocket attacks right after the pullout.
Israeli officials say the measures are solely because of security considerations.
Wolfensohn acknowledged such concerns but said Israel and the Palestinians should be able to quickly resolve differences over borders.
On another subject, Rice said in Canada that the United States wants to resolve a long-standing trade dispute over Canadian lumber.
Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin said Monday he was willing to negotiate a lumber agreement if Washington returned $3.5 billion in contested duties, and he threatened to sue if the United States wouldn't budge.
"I think it's extremely important not to speak in apocalyptic language on this," Rice said at a press conference with Canadian Foreign Minister Pierre Pettigrew.
Pettigrew blamed the U.S. timber industry for pressuring the Bush administration.
"It is a very tough lobby. You have my sympathies, Condi," Pettigrew said.
Rice smiled but did not respond.
The United States accuses Canada of sending millions of board feet of lumber from government-owned timberlands across the border at low prices, making it tough for U.S. companies to compete.
North American Free Trade Agreement panels ruled in favor of Canada and said $3.5 billion in U.S. tariffs and duties collected on Canadian lumber were not justified. The United States claims the tariffs are legal.
"Well, that's kind of what I was thinking, which makes me wonder what Israel has to do with it."
Jews and Freemasons are ALWAYS to blame. Don't you watch Al-Jazeera.
Rice must have lost her faculties. What a suicdal destructive proposal. Arabs are
not interested in "economic develpment." They are only interested in murder,
mayhem, the destruction of Israel and conquest for Islam.
Uhmmmm..that's a little over the top.
Welcome to Free Republic.
Lets put it in another way, OK Condi.
What number of dead Jews a day will the Administration accept to make the Arabs happy?
"I swear, they leave their brains at the door when they enter the state dept." LOL
I'm Beginning to think Condi is a stupid broad, too. Educated igit!
Condoleeza Reich has been little more than a mouthpiece for the Arabs who call themselves "Palestinians" since the day she came into office. What is it in the drinking water at State which makes every occupant despise the State of Israel?
Just on THOSE comments? Every time she opens her mouth her stock falls a few more points with us. She's worth about a nickel a share and falling fast. Condo-leeeza for Presdent? NEVER!
Just wait until the one-worlders start using Condi's words against us in 20 years, in pressuring this nation: "U.S. out of Occupied Mexico"
You KNOW that's coming... you just KNOW it is.
Economic development? Maybe the Israelis should build some greenhouses in Gaza so the Palestinians can grow and export food like the Israelis did. Wait, they did leave them behind after some American Jews paid Israel to leave them after the pull out. How long did the greenhouses last? Was it hours or minutes after Israel pulled out of Gaza?
I had thought it was stupid to leave anything behind, but it was worth it just to show (yet again) how suicidally destructive the Palestinians are.
But they are going into building development and architecture, didn't you know?
PA to build huge Arafat mausoleum
The impoverished PA (or so they say) will spend over one million dollars on this project. At the same time they are going to renovate the entire Mukata compound under the terms of an agreement signed Tuesday between the PA and the United Nations Development Program [UNDP].
Japan will finance the project, estimated at more than $10 million.
Please, tell me when the world stops spinning.
It's what they get to drink, and eat and make merry with- courtesy of the Saudis- after they leave office that counts.
"Arab" is a race which includes many who are not members of the Death Cult, thus making your statement false. I have taken the liberty of correcting it for you above.
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