WASHINGTON, Sept 2, (AFP): Israeli and Palestinian leaders launched their first direct talks in 20 months Thursday, starting the clock on a daunting one-year deadline to flesh out a Palestinian state to live in peace with Israel.
After a day of weighty symbolism and lofty rhetoric at the White House, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sat down with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.
“I want to thank all of you for joining us today to relaunch negotiations,” Clinton, who is hosting the talks, told the two leaders, praising them for their “courage and commitment.”
“The decision to sit at this table was not easy. We understand the suspicion and skepticism that so many feel born out of years of conflict and frustrated hopes,” Clinton said.
“But by being here today, you each have taken an important step toward freeing your peoples from the shackles of a history we cannot change.”
In an ornate room at the State Department, the leaders were to tackle core issues that have bedeviled decades of peace attempts — Israel’s security, the borders of a Palestinian state, the right of return for Palestinian refugees and the fate of Jerusalem, claimed by both as their capital,
Netanyahu said at the start of the talks that peace was possible only with “painful concessions from both sides,” and called on the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Clinton, Middle East envoy George Mitchell and other US officials were to work with Netanyahu, Abbas and their teams during an intense three hours of brass-tacks negotiations.
Clinton spokesman Philip Crowley did not rule out the possibility that the Israeli and Palestinian leaders might huddle on their own.
Analysts expect the two sides to first tackle the less difficult issues of security and borders and skirt the thorny problems of refugees and Jerusalem, which cut to the heart of their identities as peoples living next to each other.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who was at the White House to help mediate the talks, on Wednesday urged US President Barack Obama to throw the full weight of the United States behind the talks.
“What is really needed is for the United States to step in, remain committed, remain engaged and lend a helping hand to the two parties in order to help bridge the gaps in the positions, sort the differences,” Mubarak’s spokesman Soliman Awaad said.
Abbas and Netanyahu, with Mitchell acting as a go-between, have already broached some of the core issues during indirect “proximity” talks that began in May without any sign of progress.
Abbas had previously refused to enter direct negotiations without a full halt to Israeli settlement activity, but yielded under pressure from Obama.
But Abbas has warned that a renewal of settlement activities after September 26, when a 10-month partial moratorium expires, would end the negotiations. The settlements house about 500,000 people on lands occupied by Israel in 1967.
The Palestinians want to build a state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which is currently run by the militant Islamist Hamas movement, with east Jerusalem as its capital. Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its undivided capital.
Israeli and Palestinian forces meanwhile scoured the occupied West Bank for gunmen in the second attack on settlers claimed by Hamas, a staunch opponent of the negotiations, in as many days.
Despite the flare-up of violence, Obama urged both sides not to let slip a fleeting opportunity for peace, as he gathered the two leaders with King Abdullah II of Jordan and Mubarak at the White House on Wednesday.
“This moment of opportunity may not soon come again,” said Obama, who met the leaders separately on Wednesday, and then hosted a dinner that also included Clinton and diplomatic Quartet representative Tony Blair.
The normally hawkish Netanyahu vowed to forge a “historic” peace with the Palestinians once and for all, calling Abbas his “partner in peace.”
Abbas responded by calling for an end to bloodshed after the latest Hamas attacks, but also demanded a halt to Israel settlement activity.
The last direct peace negotiations ended in bloodshed in December 2008 when Israeli forces invaded the Gaza Strip to halt Hamas rocket fire on Israel.
Attacks
The Islamist Hamas movement vowed on Thursday to press a campaign of attacks against Israelis, hours ahead of the relaunch of direct peace talks in Washington.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said that the arrest of scores of the movement’s members in the occupied West Bank would not prevent it from following up on two shooting attacks in 24 hours that killed four Israeli settlers.
“The resistance operations will continue and these measures will not succeed in weakening the resistance or providing security for the (Israeli) occupation,” he said.
“The heroic operations of the resistance in the West Bank are proof that the resistance is continuing... despite the security cooperation between the Fatah authority and the occupation.”
Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, has vehemently opposed the Western-backed Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s decision to relaunch direct talks which he suspended when Israel launched a devastating offensive against the territory in December 2008.
“The real representative of the Palestinian people is the power of the resistance,” Abu Zuhri said, in a swipe at the negotiators in Washington.
The Hamas leadership in Gaza has accused Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, largely dominated by his secular Fatah movement, of rounding up some 550 of its supporters in a wave of arrests in the West Bank.
A Hamas official in the West Bank said the number was closer to 150.
Support
Britain and Germany threw their weight behind Thursday’s direct talks in Washington between Israel and the Palestinians, warning that “failure would be very serious”.
Saying the European Union stood ready to support the negotiations, Foreign Secretary William Hague and his German counterpart Guido Westerwelle urged the two sides to show “perseverance, commitment and courage”.
Westerwelle called the talks a “direct chance for success,” but warned that radicals in the Middle East would try to stifle their progress.
“We stand ready with our European partners to do all that we can to buttress those talks and to work with countries in the region to that end,” he said.
“We look to Prime Minister Netanyahu and president Abbas to show the perseverance, commitment and courage needed to achieve a sovereign, viable and contiguous Palestinian state living in peace and security alongside a safe and secure Israel and their other neighbours in the region,” Hague added.
“Failure would be very serious but we hope that the courage and commitment will be shown to bring about that success.”
Westerwelle said the talks offered an “opportunity, no more or less”, as he expressed “careful and cautious optimism”.
The start of direct talks already constituted “enormous progress”, the German foreign minister said.
Westerwelle called on all sides to “work hard to create the conditions which make the success of these peace talks possible”.
“We believe them to be a direct chance for success,” he said.
“No-one knows here and now where these talks will lead, whether they will end in success or not. We encourage all parties and all sides to engage in a constructive spirit and not to be diverted from the path leading towards peace.”
He added: “We expect many radical forces to try hard to lay hurdles in the path of the negotiations. Thus we will make use of our influence to encourage the moderate and constructive forces so they can keep the upper hand.”
“No-one is in a position to say what the outcome is going to be 12 months from now.”
Pope Benedict XVI Thursday called for a Middle East peace agreement that is “respectful of the legitimate aspirations” of Israelis and Palestinians, during a meeting with Israeli President Shimon Peres.
The pope said he hoped Israeli and Palestinian leaders’ resumption of direct talks set for later on Thursday in Washington would assist the parties in reaching a deal “capable of bringing lasting peace to the Holy Land and to the entire region,” the Vatican said in a statement.
He also condemned all forms of violence and affirmed “the necessity of guaranteeing better conditions of life to all the peoples of the area.”
Israelis and Palestinians should avoid “provocative actions” which could derail direct peace talks, the European Union’s chief diplomat said Thursday after a flare-up of violence.
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton praised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas “for their vision and political courage” as they prepared to resume negotiations.
She said the outcome of their talks would be “crucial” for both sides and the whole Middle East.
But the killing of four Israelis near a West Bank settlement, an attack claimed by the Islamist militant group Hamas, “shows that there are forces in the region which are determined to undermine the peace process,” Ashton said.
“We must not allow them to succeed. Supporters of peace must persevere through difficult times,” she said in a statement.
“It is very important that all relevant parties avoid provocative actions which could undermine the success of the talks.”
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon welcomed on Thursday the resumption of direct peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis, shortly before they were to begin in Washington.
“I am very encouraged and happy about these direct talks for the Middle East peace process between Israel and the Palestinian Authority taking place today,” Ban told journalists after meeting with Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger in Vienna.
Asked whether Hamas, which controls Gaza, might be brought into the peace process, Ban replied: “We have already seen attempts by cynical groups who really want to derail this peace process.”
“We have to battle” against such groups, he added.
Ban reiterated his support for Abbas, noting that his leadership was recognised by the entire international community.