EU ready to pay Palestinians who renounce right of return
The European Union is willing to provide financial compensation for Palestinian refugees and their descendants who renounce their “right of return” in a final peace deal with Israel, the EU’s ambassador to Israel indicated Monday, in what appears to be the first time a senior EU official publicly endorsed such an offer.
An Israeli diplomatic official, however, dismissed the idea, suggesting the Palestinians would likely be unwilling to accept it.
Ambassador Lars Faaborg-Andersen also said that, in the framework of an “unprecedented new partnership” the EU is offering Israelis and Palestinians if they sign a permanent peace treaty, Brussels would be willing to significantly upgrade commercial and trade cooperation with both sides. The could help stabilize the new Palestinian state, thus preventing a “failed state” that would become a “launching pad” for attacks against Israel, he said.
“We would also be, of course, very ready to assist in the implementation of any final peace agreement, be it with compensation of refugees, be it on the security front,” Faaborg-Andersen said.
The Palestinian Authority’s refusal to relinquish the “right of return” to areas Palestinians inhabited before 1948 is one of the sticking points in the current US-brokered peace negotiations, as Israel fears being flooded by refugees and thereby losing its Jewish majority. Financial compensation for refugees or their descendants who waive the “right of return” has often been proposed as a possible solution to the problem.
Read more: EU ready to pay Palestinians who renounce right of return | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/eu-ready-to-pay-palestinians-who-renounce-right-of-return/#ixzz2wyxyPMOz
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