May 11, 2002	Saturday	Safar 27, 1423

ROME, May 10: Israel reserves the right to demand the extradition of the 13 Palestinians who were taken to Cyprus on Friday, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said here.

“Those people have the scent of blood on their hands. They killed other people,” Peres told reporters in Rome following a meeting with Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

“The Israeli position is very clear,” said Peres. Israel reserved the right to demand the extradition of the Palestinians and “put them to justice, bring them before a court”.

An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said later that the possibility of Israel seeking the extradition of the men “is not something that’s on the agenda at the moment.”

Peres said that in the meantime Israel expected any government which played host to the 13 hardliners, who left Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity for Cyprus after a five-week Israeli army siege, to “keep an eye on them”.

Rome and its EU partners are pondering whether to agree to accept some of the 13 “most wanted” Palestinians into exile and are likely to make a decision on the Palestinians’ legal status at a foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels Monday.

The Israeli foreign minister said he believed there were “four or five” countries who had agreed to share the Palestinians among them, but did not name them.

Italian Justice Minister Roberto Castelli said earlier that the men, who Israel regards as “very dangerous” terrorists, would be free to circulate between countries within Europe’s outer borders.

Peres told a press conference that his government had made a compromise in agreeing to the men going into exile, “because according to our juridical system they are supposed to stand trial in Israel under Israeli law.”

“We should decide to exercise the right or not depending on the circumstances,” added Peres.

“There are many possibilities. Look, to tell things as they are, it’s not a clear cut juridical arrangement. Let’s be open about it, namely it’s a political arrangement to overcome an extremely complicated juridical situation.

“I would say this is a sort of constructive ambiguity in order to solve the problem. And that’s the story.”

Israel had compromised their legal demands for the sake of political expediency in their talks with United States and European Union negotiators, Peres indicated. “We agreed to it in order to put an end to the siege of the Church in Bethlehem.”

“We understand that this is a most unusual event.”—AFP