- JERUSALEM (Reuters) -- Shimon
Peres, the head of Israel's opposition Labor Party, has suggested resolving
Israeli-Palestinian conflict over Jerusalem by putting its holy sites under
UN stewardship, a spokesman said on Tuesday. His plan calls for declaring
a holy area of sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims in Jerusalem's
old walled city as a "world capital", with the UN Secretary-General
serving as mayor, Peres' spokesman Yoram Dori said.
-
- Israel claims Jerusalem as its capital, including the
Arab eastern part captured in the 1967 Middle East War and annexed in a
move that is not recognized internationally. Palestinians want to make
East Jerusalem capital of the state they hope to establish in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip under a U.S.-backed peace plan.
-
- Peres raised the idea in a meeting with visiting Russian
diplomats-in-training when they asked how he envisaged a solution to conflicting
Israeli-Palestinian claims to the city, Dori said. Israel has previously
rejected proposals raised by the Vatican to internationalize Jerusalem.
-
- Peres, a former prime minister and an architect of interim
peace deals with the Palestinians, has not raised the proposal with Israeli
or Palestinian leaders, Dori said.
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