April 19, 2002	Friday	Safar 5, 1423

KARACHI, April 18: The European Union has been urged to intensify its role in promoting solutions to the current problem in the Middle East and Asia.

The call was made on Thursday in a unanimously adopted resolution at the end of the two-day international seminar on “Relations between the European Union and the Muslim world in the contemporary geopolitical and economic scenario.”

It was organized by the Area Study Centre for Europe, Karachi University, in collaboration with the EU, Brussels, and the Hanns Seidel Foundation.

Though the resolution did not specifically mention the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, nor did it condemn Israeli policies, the resolution was adopted in the backdrop of the criticism of western policies in the face of Israel’s state terrorism against Palestinians and Muslims elsewhere.

“In this age of globalization, closer interaction between the EU and the countries of the Muslim world can be specially productive in the fields of trade, education, science and technology, empowerment of women and poverty.”

It also called for continuity of the dialogue to facilitate better understanding between the Euro-Mediterranean partnership, and the ASEM dialogue.

Director of the ASCE, Dr Naveed Tahir, presented the resolution in the session chaired by the former federal minister, Javed Jabbar.

Dr Muhammad El-Syed Selim’s presentation in the second session on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process set the tone for the day when he highlighted the contradictions in the European response to the present conflict, and said that “Europe has the tool of influence but lacks only the will to use it.”

He said that unless the root cause of the conflict was addressed, conflict-prevention efforts through various types of confidence-building measures would not be effective.

“The problem is that the EU has not developed a common will to use these tools, and still prefers to be on the sidelines of the conflict. It seems that the USA is out this time to impose a settlement in the conflict based on the Israeli concept of peace, which will mean the marginalization of European interests in the region. The EU remembers that its EMP project was formulated in response to the American-Israeli MENA project meant to steer European influence away from the region,” he said.

Dr Selim called upon European countries to stop selling military hardware to Israel and was critical of the German government for expediting the sale of submarines to the Sharon government when he was killing Palestinians.

He called for a new wave of European policy towards the Arab- Israeli conflict that corresponds with the serious deterioration of the situation. The new wave of the European approach to an Arab-Israeli peace should herald a movement from a conflict preventive to a conflict-resolving approach based on a strategic understanding with the Americans and the local parties. It should also mean that the EU would consistently use its t