Brussels 11.10.2023 After this meeting with the EU Arab partners in Muscat, Oman, the High Representative Josep Borrell chaired the informal meeting of EU Foreign Affairs Ministers. Here are the remarks he made afterwards:
“I called a meeting of the [informal] Foreign Affairs Council. Some ministers were here in Oman, in Muscat, others from their capitals joined the meeting by videoconference. It was an important meeting in order to share our views about the situation, where we are, what is happening on the ground, the reactions, and also to inform the colleagues that were not here about the results of our meeting with the Gulf Cooperation Council. (Image above: illustration)

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“I can say that the ministers have endorsed our Communication with the Gulf [Cooperation Council]. The elements of this Communication have been retaken by the [EU] ministers once and again. All of them said what we have said in our Communication: condemnation of terrorist attack, condemnation of any attack against civilians; release of hostages; protection of civilians; respect of international humanitarian law – and it means no blockage of water, food, or electricity to the civil population in Gaza – to open humanitarian corridors; to facilitate people who have to escape the bombing from Gaza. They could leave the country through Egypt – because the Israeli border is closed.

“Prepare the day after, it is the fourth time in my life that I witness a war in Gaza, the bombing of Gaza, and terrorist actions which have been retaliated by Israel on their right of defense. All ministers insisted on the idea that this has to be done according to international humanitarian law. But we have to think also about what will happen after.

“For that we have to increase our cooperation with the Arab world. And we have to recalibrate and upgrade the initiative that we took some months ago together with the League of Arab States, with Egypt, with Jordan, with Saudi Arabia, in order to revive the Arab Peace Plan and to remind the world that the Palestinian problem still exists, that to make peace between Arab countries and Israel is good and necessary, but peace has also to be done with the Palestinians. Otherwise, the cycle of violence will restart again. So, we have to scale up and recalibrate our dynamic, that we wanted to create in New York, when 60 states attending the meeting declared they were in favour of the two-states solution. Because we do not know other solutions. So, we need to work to make it viable, although 30 years after the Camp David Agreement it looks further far away than ever.

“In the meantime, we have to increase our humanitarian support to the victims of this tragedy, and we have to reach out to partners around the world. The international community has to use this critical moment – this could be an awakening moment – in order to re-engage with the problem of Palestine and Israel.

“Israel has the right to defend [itself], but it has to be done according to the right of international law, humanitarian law. Some decisions are against this international law”…