- BRUSSELS (AFP) - The European
Union rounded angrily on Israel on Monday for killing Hamas spiritual leader
Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, warning that his assassination was "very bad
news" for the Middle East peace process.
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- EU foreign ministers appealed for restraint on all sides
after Yassin's killing in an Israeli helicopter strike, which they called
an illegal act that would only fuel bloodshed and further hinder Middle
East peace efforts.
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- "The assassination... has inflamed the situation,"
they said in a statement. "Violence is no substitute for the political
negotiations, which are necessary for a just and lasting settlement."
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- EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said: "The
manner in which you fight terrorism is through the law. This was an illegal
act under international law.
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- "This is very, very bad news for the peace process,"
he added.
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- The 67-year-old wheelchair-bound cleric was killed early
on Monday in an Israeli helicopter strike in Gaza City, prompting the radical
Islamist movement he founded to declare all-out war on the Jewish state.
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- Tens of thousands of protestors took to the streets of
the Palestinian territories to vent their fury at the killing.
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- The EU, the biggest aid contributor to the Palestinian
Authority, has long urged restraint on both sides of the conflict but has
had to defend itself from charges that it is biased towards the Palestinians.
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- French President Jacques Chirac said the EU unreservedly
condemned "all acts of violence, especially when they are acts contrary
to international law".
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- British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Israel had
the right to defend itself against terrorism. "But it is not entitled
going for this kind of unlawful killing and we therefore condemn it,"
he said.
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- "It is unacceptable. It is unjustified and it is
very unlikely to achieve its objective," Straw added, while calling
for restraint in the Arab world.
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- German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer also blasted
the Israeli killing.
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- "Along with the EU we have always rejected these
killings and described them as unacceptable," he said, adding: "Above
all we are very concerned about the possible consequences."
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- The killing of Yassin dealt a fresh blow to a beleaguered
"roadmap" for Middle East peace sponsored by the EU, the United
States, the United Nations and Russia.
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- But EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten said
there was no viable alternative to the roadmap, which envisages a Palestinian
state next year.
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- "You could look for other options from now until
the crack of doom and you wouldn't find anything more sensible than was
included in the roadmap," he said.
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- "I don't think there is some golden key out there
which we haven't discovered to unlock the Middle East peace process. What
there isn't is the political will to end the murder and the mayhem,"
Patten said.
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- For its part, Russia said it was "deeply concerned"
at the killing of Yassin.
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- "It threatens a new wave of violence which could
sabotage efforts to restart negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis,"
foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said in a statement.
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- Polish Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, recalling
the March 11 train blasts in Madrid which killed 202 people, said he feared
the killing of Yassin would spill over into wider unrest.
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- "I am afraid that it may have very, very negative
consequences, not only in terms of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,"
he said at the EU talks.
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- "I am afraid that the threat of terrorist attacks
against other countries, including Europeans, is growing."
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- © AFP - 2004
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