The Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller will unveil a Middle East peace plan on behalf of the European Union during an official visit to the United States this Wednesday.
The peace plan, which will be presented to US Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington, will not require an international conference, which Moeller said was "no longer timely" and "takes too much time."
He said his proposal would not "make an international conference the goal, since it is too long to put into effect, but rather start with small working groups of the quartet," a reference to the United States, Russia, Europe and the United Nations.
Moeller said: "We cannot wait for an international conference, which is certainly necessary - but not now, for we would lose too much time."
"It is important to get out of the impasse and this paralysed state," he added.
He said the European Union would not necessarily run the expert group sessions, but that it was essential to "to get to work in order to fill the current void before the Palestinian elections" planned for January, he said.
Moeller said he would discuss the plan with EU counterparts Tuesday before presenting it to Powell.
Meanwhile, a high-ranking Palestinian official called today for a boycott of the US Secretary of State after Colin Powell said Washington has no intention of talking with the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
"I call on all Palestinian officials to boycott Colin Powell. I call on all Palestinians not to meet Powell," said Palestinian cabinet secretary Ahmed Abdul Rahman, in an interview with Qatar-based Arab satellite news channel al-Jazeera.
"I am against any Palestinians meeting with any American or Israeli officials as long as the Palestinian people are under siege, as long as the Palestinian people are under occupation, as long as president Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian leadership are under siege," Abdul Rahman said.
Speaking with Fox television earlier in the day, Powell noted that, while US officials still talk to "a variety of Palestinian leaders," they have had no conversations with Arafat since Bush delivered his speech last Monday.
AFP