ISRAEL AND the Palestinians will resume direct peace talks in Washington on September 2nd.
Inviting the parties to relaunch the face-to-face negotiations that were broken off when Israel invaded the Gaza Strip in December 2008, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton set an ambitious one-year target date for the sides to reach a comprehensive peace deal resulting in the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
Speaking yesterday at a state department news conference, Mrs Clinton admitted that the road ahead would not be easy. “There have been difficulties in the past, there will be difficulties ahead . . . I ask the parties to persevere, to keep moving forward even through difficult times and to continue working to achieve a just and lasting peace in the region,” she said.
The Middle East Quartet released its own statement calling on the parties to resolve all the final status issues to end the occupation that began in 1967.
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu welcomed the US invitation, saying Israel wanted to hold serious and comprehensive talks.
“Reaching a peace agreement is difficult, but possible. We come with the genuine wish to secure peace between the two peoples, while preserving Israel’s national interests, and first and foremost its security,” he said.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat welcomed the quartet statement as “containing the elements needed to provide for a peace agreement”. Ismail Haniya, the Hamas leader in Gaza, speaking after Friday prayers, said “nothing has been achieved” to warrant direct talks with Israel.
The day before the relaunch of the direct talks, president Barack Obama will hold separate meetings with the two leaders and with Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, Jordan’s King Abdullah and Tony Blair. The latter is the special representative of the quartet – which comprises the US, the UN, the EU and Russia. In the evening, he will host a dinner for all the guests.
US envoy George Mitchell, who has been shuttling between the two sides in Jerusalem and Ramallah since May when indirect proximity talks began, said it was up the parties to decide how and where the talks proceeded after the Washington relaunch. He said Washington would introduce bridging proposals at “the appropriate moment”.
Noting the difficulties ahead, Mr Mitchell referred back to his time as a mediator in the Northern Ireland peace talks.
“The main negotiation lasted 22 months. During that time, the effort was repeatedly branded a failure,” he said. “In a sense, we had about 700 days of failure and one day of success. And we approach this task with the same determination to succeed, notwithstanding the difficulties . . . Past efforts that did not succeed cannot deter us from trying again, because the cause is noble and just and right for all concerned.”
The resumption of direct bilateral negotiations will be considered a major foreign policy success for the Obama administration ahead of mid-term elections in November. However, there is little optimism in the region that a comprehensive peace deal can be clinched in the 12 months set aside for the process.
