Excerpt from Interview with Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom on Israel Radio - 10-Jun-2003

... I think that the Palestinians themselves should know that as long as terrorism continues there cannot be peace. We made it clear that our government will not accept two parallel tracks - a track of peace and a track of terrorism. Therefore, in our opinion, stopping terrorism should be carried out by the Palestinians themselves. Until now, the Palestinians have failed to do so. We heard Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas' speech yesterday in Ramallah - he said that he will only conduct a dialogue with the terrorist groups and that all efforts to stop terrorism will only be in the framework of this dialogue.

This subject was raised yesterday here in Moscow during my meeting with Russian government leaders and I said that the entire subject requires a strategic decision by PA. To avoid defeating terrorism means that the peace process has been neglected. If we let the extremists be the ones to decide when the peace process will continue and when it will not, we allow the process to be taken hostage by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. It is better that the PA move quickly against Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist organizations. This will bring new hope to the region. Otherwise, we unfortunately will find ourselves in the same situation that we have been in for the past few years - with Israel continuing to fight terrorism alone, in order to safeguard the security of its citizens...