Amr Moussa : Palestine question top priority for Egypt,Arab world,EU

The Secretary General of the League of Arab States and Presidential candidate for Egypt Amr Moussa condemned the "gimmick of international conferences and negotiations" on the Palestine question and urged the Palestinians to take their case to the UN. "For 20 years negotiations were held for the sake of negotiations. Israel has indeed gained a lot and the Palestinians suffered a lot. It cannot continue," he told a debate on 'Arab Spring' organised in the European Parliament in Brussels late last night. There cannot be any negotiations under the current status quo without a stop to Jewish settlements, he said, and stressed that the Palestine question is a top priority for Egypt, the Arab world and Europe. "We have failed in the process of peace," he told the large jampacked hall and called on the Palestinians to go before the UN for a recognition of the Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. Moussa whose term as the chief of the Arab League ends in 10 days commenting on Libya said that "we have to protect the civilian population and we do not accept the partition of Libya. "We have to preserve the sovereignty of Libya and we have to take into consideration the aspirations of the Libyan people and we should not stifle their aspirations," he said. Turning to Syria, he said we are talking "about a regional problem, a problem that would affect several countries around Syria." "But we certainly cannot accept mistreatment of civilians. We are disturbed by the increasing number of casualties and what we see, people fleeing the country, that is what makes us all to sit down and discuss and decide what should we do," he said. Moussa called on the EU to support the process of change and democratisation in the Arab world without putting any conditions. "We suffer within the spring but it remains a spring, and we are going to move from spring to summer, to winter, and the four seasons will work and I firmly believe that they are going to work in favor of progress, of change and for a better future," he concluded.