The term the "Third Phase of the Roadmap" refers to the set of Israeli and Palestinian obligations, outlined and framed by the Quartet as the final phase of the Roadmap (4/03). The essence of this phase is the signing of a Permanent Status Agreement (PSA) which realizes the Two-State Solution.

The “Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” is a framework for the Israeli-Palestinian political process presented by the Quartet. The Roadmap is based on the Bush Vision to the Middle East (6/02), which presented an outline to resume the Israeli-Palestinian political process.

The Roadmap cites the UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 and the UN Security Council Resolution 1397 as forming the basis for the political process.

Prime Minister Sharon and PM Abu Mazen accepted the Roadmap in the presence of President Bush at the Aqaba Summit (June 4, 2003).¹

However, the Israeli government presented a list of fourteen reservations. Israel stipulated that “the first condition for progress will be the complete cessation of terror, violence and incitement,” and that all subsequent progress would be conditioned on maintaining this calm.² Israel insisted that the future settlement will be reached through agreement and direct negotiations between the two parties. These reservations were not acknowledged and have no official standing.

The Third Phase of the Roadmap is to be preceded by the establishment of a Palestinian State with Provisional Borders in the Second Phase of the Roadmap.

Hence, the Roadmap reverses the Sequence of the Israeli-Palestinian Political Process as embodied in the Oslo Process, which was based on establishing a Palestinian State after a Permanent Status Agreement.

The Third Phase of the Roadmap is characterized by the following criteria³:

• The Quartet will convene an international conference to launch a process leading to a Permanent Status Agreement which solves all Historical Issues on the basis of UN Security Council Resolutions 242, 338 and 1397.
• This conference will also support progress toward a comprehensive Middle East settlement between Israel and Lebanon and Israel and Syria.
• Arab state acceptance of full normal relations with Israel and security for all the states of the region in the context of a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace.

“In the first phase of the plan and as a condition for progress to the second phase, the Palestinians will complete the dismantling of terrorist organizations (Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front, the Democratic Front Al-Aqsa Brigades and other apparatuses) and their infrastructure, collection of all illegal weapons and their transfer to a third party for the sake of being removed from the area and destroyed, cessation of weapons smuggling and weapons production inside the Palestinian Authority, activation of the full prevention apparatus and cessation of incitement. There will be no progress to the second phase without the fulfillment of all above-mentioned conditions relating to the war against terror.”