Shuneh (Jordan), June 22: Former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres today warned that Israel and the Palestinians must implement steps for peace or face a "catastrophe". "In Aqaba (Jordan) we had a political start and now we have an economic start -- if they fail it will be catastrophic", Peres said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum summit meeting on the shores of the Dead Sea.
The Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers met in Aqaba on June 4 at a summit also attended by US president George W Bush and Jordan's King Abdullah II, during which they pledged to implement a "roadmap" to peace between them. Peres, who shared the Nobel peace prize with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for the 1993 Oslo peace accords, said now was the time to follow up on this commitment.
But he also acknowledged that the road to peace was complicated.

"Today we have a framework expressed in the roadmap but the implementation is not simple", said Peres, who was elected thursday night to head the opposition centre-left labour party for one year.

"It will take time. It is not simple because the mistakes of the past are very complicated for both sides", he said.

Peres, a veteran Israeli politician, expected this to start in the Gaza Strip.

Bureau Report