Officials at the upcoming Euro-Mediterranean Conference will have to find a strategy to combat the spread of Islamic fundamentalism, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres has said.
The foreign minister recently made the remarks about the November conference in Barcelona, Spain, in an interview in the weekly The European. Fifteen foreign ministers from the European Union are to meet their counterparts from 12 Mediterranean countries.
Peres warned that Islamic fundamentalists “could acquire nuclear weapons in four or five years.”
He said of the future: “The fundamentalists could take over the oil wells. They could play with the European economy like a toy.”
Tourism can not exist with terrorism, he added.
However, Peres said Europe lacks unity when it came to foreign policy.
“Europe has an economic character without having a diplomatic soul,” the foreign minister said. “It has the wealth to become maybe the most important leader in world diplomacy, but it is incapable of maintaining a constant position.”
He also said, “I hope a way can be found to overcome these difficulties because it’s unhealthy for the world to depend on a single parent – the U.S. You need two.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
