MGGZ01: TUNISIA CALLS FOR RESUMPTION OF DIALOGUE

UNCLAS TUNIS 001641

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

STATE FOR NEA/MAG (HARRIS) AND NEA/IPA (TWILLIAMS)

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PREL KPAL TS
SUBJECT: MGGZ01: TUNISIA CALLS FOR RESUMPTION OF DIALOGUE



1. (SBU) On June 29, Tunisia released an official statement
related to the latest Israeli-Palestinian developments,
reiterating its call for "resumption of dialogue and
implementation of the Roadmap." Also on June 29, in a speech
to newly arrived ambassadors, President Ben Ali stressed the
need for "international protection" for the Palestinian
people and the importance of resuming negotiations. Both the
statement and the speech reflected Tunisia's traditional
moderate stance on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, while
reiterating its support for the Palestinian people.


2. (U) Below is the full text of the official public
statement (TAP Translation):

BEGIN TEXT:

Tunisia reiterates its call for resumption of dialogue and
implementation of "Roadmap"

TUNIS, June 29 (TAP) - Tunisia is following, with great
concern, developments in the occupied Palestinian
territories, and the painful conditions the brotherly
Palestinian people are subjected to, and the degradation of
the situation in the region, as a result of Israel's
obstinacy to escalate its attacks against a defenseless
people, imposing on it a stifling blockade and destroying its
infrastructures and belongings.

Tunisia, which hosted the Palestinian Revolution, offered its
leadership the ideal framework in which it carried out its
action in all freedom, opened to the Palestinians the ways
for weaving tight and robust ties with the European capitals,
and helped them launch dialogue with the United States of
America, which made possible the Palestinian leadership's
return to Palestine.

Tunisia has unfailingly supported the Palestinian cause and
reasserted its active solidarity with the Palestinian people
in their fight for recovering their robbed lands and their
right to self-determination and the edification of an
independent state on their soil.

Given its conviction that dialogue and political solutions
are the surest way and the most efficient tool to achieve a
just, comprehensive and sustainable settlement, Tunisia has
expended huge efforts and is incessantly endeavoring to urge
the international community to take a firm stand to put an
end to the Israeli government's violations and compel it to
abide by the international legality and to be serious and
responsible in dealing with all initiatives and efforts meant
to revive the peace process.

Today more than ever before, Tunisia reaffirms the need to
provide international protection to the Palestinian people,
as part of the respect of international law, the United
Nations legitimacy and the relevant Security Council
resolutions.

It reiterates its call to all influential sides, particularly
members of the Quartet, to act for the resumption of dialogue
and the implementation of the "Roadmap," with a view to
reaching a fair, comprehensive and lasting peace in the
Middle East region and to help all the region's peoples live
in security and stability, and devote themselves to the tasks
of building and reconstruction.

END TEXT.
HUDSON