Moussa meets former Australian FM

Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa Wednesday held a meeting with Former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans. Evans is the co-chairman of an Independent International Committee on humanitarian intervention and states sovereignty.

Asked whether the Committee was concerned with the current situation in the Palestinian territories, Evans said what is going on in the Middle East region is for sure a source of deep concern.

But he said that he does not believe that "international military intervention" would settle the conflict. "This issue should be treated through diplomacy and smart management of conflicts," he said.

Evans alluded to a number of UN resolutions that should be implemented, stressing anew that the Palestinian cause could not be settled by "military means but by finding political settlement between the two sides."

He said that he discussed with Moussa a number of issues related to the work of the committee which is assigned to determine the cases and conditions in which the international community should intervene, as in human rights abuses and serious situations endangering civilians' lives.

Assistant Foreign Minister for Multilateral International Relations, Soliman Awad, who attended the meeting, said that the committee is now pre-occupied with real concept of "humanitarian intervention" which was put forth by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 1999.

The International Committee was set up in 2000 upon the initiative of Canada and groups a number of officials from world countries.

The Board of the Committee includes a high-ranking consultative council in which Moussa is a member in his personal capacity.