Sharon: Israel must make 'painful concessions'
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Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon speaks Thursday at the annual newspaper editor's conference in Tel Aviv, Israel.
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JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Thursday his country will have to make "painful concessions" and withdraw from Palestinian land to move the peace process forward.
He did not, however, concede to pressure to stop building the barrier around Israel which an international policy research group says extends at times into the Palestinian-controlled West Bank.
Speaking to Israeli news editors Thursday, Sharon said he was in favor of the road map to Middle East peace, a plan created by the European Union, Russia, the United States and the United Nations -- and presented to the Palestinian Authority in April.
"The best move for Israel is to make the Palestinians move forward on the road map," he said. "The road map is the only way that will bring forth a cease-fire and a resumption of negotiations in which the Palestinians will have an independent state."
The road map calls for both sides to take steps aimed at ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and establishing an independent Palestinian state by 2005. Progress on the plan was delayed this summer after renewed rounds of attacks in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Sharon also repeated comments he made earlier this month in Moscow that Israel is ready to make concessions -- but not on the barrier.
"Israel will have to make painful concessions -- it is clear that we will not remain in all the places we are in now," he said. "If the Palestinians would not have started with terrorism we would not have built the security fence but the work on the fence will be accelerated -- it is essential to Israel's security."
The Palestinians call the barrier a land grab, noting construction around some Jewish settlements does not follow the so-called Green Line, the frontier between Israel and the West Bank before the 1967 war.
The new barrier will follow the old line, but at some points will veer into the West Bank, enclosing some 77-square kilometers of occupied land. At least 11 Palestinian villages will end up on the Israeli side of the barrier, according to globalsecurity.org, a nonpartisan international policy research group.
Israel has said the barrier -- which is a few kilometers inside the West Bank in most cases but follows the contours of the border with Israel -- is necessary to stop Palestinian terrorists from entering Israel.
In October, U.S. Assistant Secretary for Near East Affairs William Burns called on Israelis to stop settlement activity and the construction of the barrier, insisting it "undermines Israeli and Palestinian interests."
The Israeli government began building the barrier last year. In some spots, it is an electronic fence topped with razor wire and in other spots a massive concrete wall.
Israel has built 93 miles (150 km) of the barrier in the north. When finished the barrier will stretch 428 miles (690 km) at an estimated cost of $1.5 billion – a little more than $3.5 million per mile.
Briefing the U.N. Security Council earlier this month, Kieran Prendergast, under-secretary- general for political affairs, said construction of the barrier made peace more difficult to achieve, diminished trust, and made the realization of a two-state solution more difficult.
