WORLD LEADERS WANT MIDEAST PEACE

WORLD LEADERS WANT MIDEAST PEACE

Former leaders call for settlement in Arab-Israeli conflictCall to end Israeli occupation, end boycott of Palestinian Authority, and recognise Israel.

LONDON - More than 100 former world leaders, foreign ministers, diplomats, and religious leaders have put their names to an open letter published in The Financial Times on Wednesday calling for progress towards a settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Organised by the International Crisis Group and signed by former world leaders such as US president Jimmy Carter, British prime minister John Major and president of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev, the letter calls for urgent international action.Everyone has lost in this conflict except the extremists throughout the world who prosper on the rage that it continues to provoke. Every passing day undermines prospects for a peaceful, enduring solution,the letter, with a total of 135 signatories, reads.

As long as the conflict lasts, it will generate instability and violence in the region and beyond.Former UN secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the Dalai Lama and the Reverend Desmond Tutu also signed the letter, which includes eight Nobel Peace Prize winners (including Carter, Gorbachev and Tutu).The goal must be security and full recognition to the state of Israel within international recognized borders, an end to the occupation for the Palestinian people in a viable independent, sovereign state, and the return of lost land to Syria,the letter reads.

It calls for a new international conference, ideally held as soon as possible and attended by all relevant players, at which all the elements of a comprehensive peace agreement would be mapped, and momentum gathered for detailed negotiations.The letter also calls for an end to the financial boycott of the Palestinian Authority, talks between Israel and the Palestinian leadership, and parallel talks between Israel, Syria and Lebanon.Other notable signatories to the letter include: former German foreign minister and current EU foreign policy chief Joschka Fischer; former NATO supreme allied commander Wesley Clark; former Indian prime minister I K Gujral; former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung; former US secretary of defense Robert McNamara; former British foreign secretary Malcolm Rifkind; and Shlomo Ben-Ami, the former Israeli foreign minister.