Days of imposing new future to Mideast 'over': Austrian chancellor

ANKARA

Those days of imposing a new future to Middle Eastern countries are “over,” the Austrian chancellor said Thursday.

The debates on whether Europe’s role was diminished in the Middle East could be a “good thing because sometimes it means there is a stronger regional ownership,” Alexander Schallenberg told a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“And we talk about the future of Gaza, we talk about the future of Syria. This will not be imposed from outside. These days are over, and that is actually a good thing. We are not in the 19th century, not in the first half of the 20th century,” the chancellor said, adding that Europe’s role should be “to support regional ownership.”

“So it is not us delivering the solution, but supporting those who have smart ideas in the region … They have to find a way. And if we talk about the two-state solution, same thing, there is a limit to what you can do from outside.”

Director and Chief Executive of Chatham House, Bronwen Maddox said, for her part, that she sees it “very hard unless there is some proper resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict … for the region to be able to thrive as otherwise it could.”

She said there was a “cessation of the death toll in Gaza” for the moment, referring to the Jan. 19 ceasefire, but nothing that looks like a path to a two-state solution.

“I think Israel has taken this tactic of ignoring the problem as far as you could, and you see where it gets it in the end,” Maddox said.