Nuncio urges renewed efforts on 'road map' to peace in Middle East

Published: 2004-11-02

UNITED NATIONS (CNS) -- Archbishop Celestino Migliore, Vatican nuncio to the United Nations, called Nov. 1 for the international community to renew efforts to get Israelis and Palestinians to follow the "road map" to peace. "The reluctance of the international community to challenge the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships to negotiate in good faith has contributed to the fact that the road map has not taken off," he said at U.N. headquarters in New York. The road map was the plan designed to produce the two-state solution proposed by President George W. Bush in a 2002 speech to the United Nations. This approach, with a timetable laying out parallel steps the two sides should take, was endorsed by a "quartet" composed of the United States, the Russian Federation, the European Union and the United Nations. A Vatican statement delivered at the United Nations last year endorsed the road map and its call for a two-state solution. But this year, Archbishop Migliore noted that the plan had not brought peace, and instead the situation remains one of "ongoing violence, economic depression, restrictions on movement and lack of access to religious sites."

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