Oslo Accords

The Oslo Accords, officially called the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements or Declaration of Principles (DOP), finalized in Oslo, Norway by August 20, 1993, and subsequently officially signed at a public ceremony in Washington D.C. on September 13, 1993 with Mahmoud Abbas signing for the Palestine Liberation Organization and Shimon Peres signing for the State of Israel witnessed by Warren Christopher for the United States and Andrei Kozyrev for Russia, in the presence of US President Bill Clinton and Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin with the PLO's Chairman Yasser Arafat.

Fate of the accords

In 2000 United States President Bill Clinton sought to keep the "Oslo Peace Process" moving forward by convening a summit between PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This Camp David 2000 Summit ended in failure, with no resolution to the conflict. The al-Aqsa Intifada that started in 2000 following the collapse of the summit added to the crumbling of the credibility of the Oslo Accords, to the point that by 2003 the right wing in Israel, and Palestinian Islamic groups such as Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah considered the accords to be dead for all practical purposes, and Israel unequivocally refused to deal with Yassir Arafat, considered a terrorist by the government of Ariel Sharon. In this climate, much of 2001, 2002, and early 2003 saw an escalation of violence by Palestinian suicide bombers and the military re-occupation of the West Bank by the Israel Defence Force that made further discussions unlikely.

Related Topics:
2000 - United States - Bill Clinton - PLO - Yasser Arafat - Israeli - Ehud Barak - Israeli-Palestinian conflict - Camp David 2000 Summit - Al-Aqsa Intifada - 2003 - Islamic Jihad - Hezbollah - Ariel Sharon - 2001 - 2002 - Suicide bombers - West Bank - Israel Defence Force

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In an attempt to break this "cycle of violence", the Mideast Quartet (the United States, European Union, Russia, and United Nations), devised what they called a "road map for peace" intended to lead to a cease-fire and restart the negotiations and the stalled peace process. Long-delayed, it was finally released by United States President George W. Bush on April 30, 2003. See the road map for peace article for further details and analysis of its reception. After nearly a year with no progress, on April 15, 2004, President George W. Bush stated: "In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion. It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities..." and "It seems clear that an agreed, just, fair and realistic framework for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state and the settling of Palestinian refugees there rather than Israel." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/15/politics/15MTEX.html?ex=1083211200&en=0bbb19713b14bdf4&ei=5070

Related Topics:
Mideast Quartet - Road map for peace - George W. Bush - April 30 - 2003 - April 15 - 2004

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