Goff criticised over Arafat meeting

12.00pm

Foreign Minister Phil Goff's decision to meet Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat tomorrow, thus ruling out talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, was another foreign policy gaff, ACT leader Richard Prebble said.

Goff is visiting the Middle East and had planned to meet both leaders, but Mr Sharon is refusing to meet any foreign minister who sees Mr Arafat.

"Prime Minister Sharon has made a policy, not simply in relation to New Zealand but in relation to every foreign minister and leader coming to Israel, that if they see chairman Arafat he will not see them," Mr Goff said.

"That is a decision that Prime Minister Sharon is able to make for himself...but it is up to us to make decisions about who we see."

However, Prebble said: "Phil Goff knows that the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, refused to visit Yasser Arafat this month," he said.

"Our foreign affairs minister also knew that the Israeli prime minister will not see foreign ministers who call on Yasser Arafat.

"It is yet another example of the Clark government's incompetent, student-like, anti-American foreign policy. Silly, gesture politics that will cost New Zealand dearly."

Progressive Coalition MP Matt Robson said the Israeli Government's position was "insulting and absurd".

"Israel doesn't tell us who we can and can't see. New Zealand makes its own foreign policy," he said.

Mr Robson is chairman of New Zealand's Parliament-Palestinian Authority friendship group of MPs.

Meanwhile in two separate incidents, Israeli troops shot at a convoy of diplomatic vehicles at a military roadblock in the Gaza Strip and also shot dead an 11-year-old Palestinian boy during a confrontation with stone-throwing youths in the West Bank.


Israeli troops shot dead an 11-year-old Palestinian boy during a confrontation with stone-throwing youths in the West Bank on Monday, Palestinian witnesses and medics said.


The army said troops also shot dead a Palestinian who infiltrated into Israel from the Gaza Strip earlier in the day.


The boy was hit in the head when soldiers fired live rounds to try to disperse a crowd of stone throwers in a village near the West Bank city of Ramallah, witnesses said.


Hospital officials said he died of his wounds. The army was checking the report.


Violence flared near the Gaza Strip when two Palestinians infiltrated into Israel, the army said. Troops shot dead one of the men and the second gave himself up.


The army said they found no guns on the men but soldiers suspected them of trying to carry out an attack in Israel.


At least 2071 Palestinians and 748 Israelis have been killed since the Palestinians began an uprising for an independent state in September 2000.


The Palestinians are required to halt violence under a US-backed "road map" peace plan approved by Israel's cabinet on Sunday. The Palestinian leadership has embraced the road map and vowed to crack down on militants.


In the other incident in Gaza, Israeli troops fired at the convoy, twice hitting the windscreen of one of the cars but causing no injuries, diplomatic sources said.


The diplomats were badly shaken by the incident as the small convoy was stopped leaving the town of Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, close to the main Erez crossing with Israel, the sources said.


The convoy included representatives of Switzerland, Britain, Greece, Sweden, and Austria.


A Swiss Foreign Ministry spokesman said its representative to the Palestinian Authority and a colleague had come under Israeli fire at a Gaza roadblock on Monday but was unhurt.


It said his armoured vehicle was clearly marked as a diplomatic car and it was unclear why it was shot at. He was held up for about an hour before being allowed to proceed.


The spokesman said the ministry was looking into the incident and "demands a comprehensive investigation" by Israel.


The Israeli army declined to comment.


Military sources said the army had closed the entrance to Beit Hanoun because of "warnings of attempts by terror organisations" to leave the town.


"There were a number of vehicles in a traffic jam trying to leave Beit Hanoun. Some of the vehicles tried to bypass the roadblock and shots were fired into the air to deter them and restore order. The claim of hits on a diplomatic car is being checked by the army now," one military source said.


The army launched a raid into Beit Hanoun earlier this month, which it said was intended to prevent Palestinian militant groups firing rockets from the town into nearby southern Israel.


These latest incidents came as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon fended off fierce right-wing criticism of the United States-backed "road map" to peace with the Palestinians as the two sides prepared for a summit with US President George W Bush.


"I want to say clearly I will do everything to reach a political arrangement (with the Palestinians) because I think it's important for Israel," Sharon told angry legislators of his Likud party, one day after Israel's cabinet backed the plan.


Sharon's reward for supporting the plan could be a summit with Bush and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas. US officials said Bush planned to meet them after a trip to Europe next week, possibly in Jordan's Red Sea port city of Aqaba.


The officials said Bush may also hold separate talks with other Arab leaders, and the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh was a possible venue. Sharon and Abbas could also meet in the next two days, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said.


Bush's attendance at a summit would underscore his personal commitment to securing Israeli-Palestinian peace following the US-led war on Iraq that angered many in the Arab world.


He hopes to ensure the most ambitious Middle East peace plan in two years succeeds after pressuring Sharon into accepting it, albeit with reservations. The Palestinians announced their support last month.


"We think it is very important that the president of the US is coming to our region to move us forward," Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said at a meeting in Greece.


- NZPA, REUTERS