c. 2000 Religion News Service
VATICAN CITY _ Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Tuesday (Aug. 1) the Palestinians as well as the Israelis have rejected the call of Pope John Paul II for a special internationally guaranteed status for Jerusalem.
Albright told a brief news conference in Rome with Italian Foreign Minister Lamberto Dino the Palestinians “were not interested in having internationalization, though they have called for an open city.” The secretary of state flew from Tokyo to Rome on Monday to brief Vatican and Italian officials on the July 25 breakdown in negotiations at Camp David on a definitive Middle East peace agreement.
Israel has consistently refused to consider any form of international status for Jerusalem, but the Palestine National Authority appeared to support the pope’s position on the city in accords it signed with the Holy See in February.
The accords, intended to pave the way for relations between the Holy See and a future Palestinian state, called for “a special, internationally guaranteed statute” for Jerusalem to safeguard “the freedom of religion and conscience of all, the equality before the law of the three monotheistic religions and the sacred role of the city.”
The status of Jerusalem was reported to be the major stumbling block in the two weeks of talks by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, led by President Clinton at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Md.
Israel has claimed Jerusalem as its “undivided and eternal capital” since it annexed Arab East Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War but has pledged open access to the holy sites. Arafat seeks to make East Jerusalem the capital of the independent Palestinian state he has said he will declare on Sept. 13.
In a move aimed at increasing the pressure on both sides to come to terms on Jerusalem, Clinton indicated after the collapse of the Camp David talks the United States might move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The United States, like the Holy See, has never recognized Israel’s claim to sovereignty over all of Jerusalem.
Albright said the major issue concerning Jerusalem is “control of the holy sites,” which is complicated by the fact that Jerusalem is holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims alike.
The problem the negotiators faced, she said, is “how to handle this at the same time as the issues of political sovereignty. That’s why this gets so complicated.”
“But nobody wanted (an international status for Jerusalem) at Camp David certainly,” Albright said. “The issue of internationalization was not the solution to it”
A senior State Department official said that at her subsequent 50-minute meeting at the Vatican with Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, who acts as the pope’s foreign secretary, Albright gave the prelate “a rundown on the discussions at Camp David, especially Jerusalem.”
The official said Albright and Tauran had a “fairly extensive exchange of views.”
But the Vatican made clear in a 10-line statement that there was no change in its stand.
“Monsignor Tauran repeated the known position of the Holy See on conditions for a just and lasting peace in that part of the world,” the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, assistant Vatican spokesman, said in the statement.
Benedettini listed the conditions as “the priority of dialogue, respect for international decisions, particularly United Nations resolutions, and the need for a special internationally guaranteed statute for the holy places of the three monotheistic religions.”
The U.S. official said Albright’s talk with Tauran was “part of the efforts of hearing and understanding the views of the parties that have an interest in the outcome” of the Middle East peace talks.
The secretary of state requested the meeting at the Vatican as part of a “continuing dialogue,” the official said. He said she had conferred earlier with both Tauran and Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican secretary of state, from Camp David.
The Vatican statement on Tuesday’s meeting echoed the words of an appeal by the pope on July 23 while the talks were still under way.
Speaking after Sunday prayers at his summer residence at Castelgandolfo, the 80-year-old pontiff urged the negotiators at Camp David “not to overlook the importance of the spiritual dimension of the city of Jerusalem.”
“The Holy See continues to hold that only an internationally guaranteed special statute can effectively preserve the most holy parts of the holy city and assure freedom of faith and of worship for all the faithful who, in the region and in the entire world, look to Jerusalem as the crossroads of peace and coexistence,” the pope said.
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The U.S. official said Albright and Tauran also discussed developments in Cuba since the pope’s visit to the island in January 1998. He said Tauran noted the Castro government has hardened its position and failed to carry through on promises to the Vatican.
Albright also held a separate 90-minute meeting with President Milo Djukanovic of Montenegro to discuss elections in Serbia scheduled for Sept. 24.
Another State Department official said Djukanovic told Albright he expected increasing pressure on his government and feared that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic would try to isolate Montenegro, which is part of a federated Yugoslavia.
Albright urged the Montenegran president “to play an active role in unifying and strengthening the opposition” to Milosevic, the U.S. official said.
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