ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN ROAD MAP WORKING GROUP

JANUARY 8-11, 2004

ISTANBUL

Recommendations

To the Government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority

Joint Statement

With a great sense of urgency a group of expert Israelis and Palestinians, with the assistance of the Christian Social Democrats of Sweden, convened in Istanbul Turkey to address the deteriorating situation in Israel/Palestine and to assess what steps could be taken by the parties aimed at rescuing the Road Map Process from collapse. It is our sense that there remains a small window of opportunity open for a limited period of time through which it may be possible to pre-empt the parties from engaging in a series of irreversible and irrevocable unilateral steps that have the potential of leading to dire consequences for both peoples. It is therefore our objective to encourage the respective parties to undertake conciliatory steps aimed at avoiding mutually negative reinforcing policies of unilateralism. It is our belief that both parties would prefer to step back from the brink and to find the means and mechanisms for relaunching the Road Map process, to reaffirm their commitments through actions to fully implement all of the obligations that they have undertaken within in the Road Map.

We therefore call upon:

The two Prime Ministers to convene a meeting between them to re-launch the implementation of the Road Map;

The parties to reconvene the mechanism for security coordination to end violence; and

The Quartet to facilitate the re-launching of the implementation of the Road Map.

Dr. Uzi Arad                                                   Nasser Tahboub

General (Res.) Yom Tov Samia                   Radi Jarai

Prof. Ezra Sadan                                           Hanna Siniora

Moti Cristal                                                      Leila Hilal

Daniel Mokady                                              Dr. Zakaria al Qaq

Dr. Gershon Baskin