Ex-Norwegian PM wants east Jerusalem as Palestinian capital


AFP
 Date: Tue, Nov 30, 2004

OSLO (AFP) - Former Norwegian prime minister Thorbjoern Jagland called for the creation of an independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital as a first step towards stabilizing the region.

"A Palestinian state must be created, with east Jerusalem as its capital... This would be the first and the best of steps to establish a dialogue with Muslims and Arabs," said Jagland, currently the head of the Norwegian parliament's foreign affairs committee and one of the leading members of the Labour opposition.

Israel annexed east Jerusalem during the Arab-Israeli war of 1967 and has refused to agree to the division of its capital.

Norway was heavily involved in efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the 1990s, hosting the first secret talks between the two sides in meetings that led to the now-dead Oslo accords in 1993.

Jagland also harshly criticized the US policy in Iraq (news - web sites), reiterating his opposition to the war and calling on Washington to "start listening" to its NATO (news - web sites) allies.

"Iraq cannot be stabilized by the occupation forces or by NATO. Iraq can only be stabilized if we start a dialogue with the Muslim world and if we get help from Muslim countries," Jagland said, adding that "the war (in Iraq) should never have been launched".

Source

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