Socialist International mideast committee calls for end to Israeli settlement policy

The Socialist International Middle-East Committee wound works in Casablanca Friday with calls on Israel to end its settlement policy in the occupied territories.

The Casablanca Declaration, adopted by participants in the two-day meeting, urged Tel Aviv to halt its settlement policy in accordance with the Oslo Accords.

The Declaration called Israel to abstain from any unilateral action likely to affect the outcome of the final status negotiations with Palestine.

Participants stressed the need that the peace process, in all its tracks, should be based on international legality. They also called the international community to extend assistance to the Palestinians to help them improve their living standards.

In an address before the meeting, Abderrahmane Youssoufi, first secretary of the Moroccan Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP, said Morocco can be proud of its tireless efforts for peace in the Middle-East.

Youssoufi, who is vice-president of the Socialist International, said the late king Hassan II and the Moroccan people have been, before the Madrid and Oslo Conferences, the pioneers of peace in the region recalling bold and unmatched moves by the late sovereign.

Under King Mohammed VI, Morocco will carry on on the path of wisdom, intelligence and foresight at the service of peace which is, more than ever before, within the reach of the Mideast people, said Youssoufi, who is also Moroccan Premier.

Our concern is to see progress on the Israeli-Palestinian track as well as headway on the Syrian-Israeli and Israeli-Lebanese tracks and foremost in the final status of Jerusalem, Youssoufi said.

Fair and lasting peace, the soonest possible, on grounds of an Israeli pullout from occupied territories to enable Palestinians exercise their inalienable right to a democratic and independent state is our main concern and objective, he added.