Monday, July 27, 2009
THE United States launched a fresh drive yesterday to restart Middle East peace talks, sending senior officials to theregion to deal with issues ranging from Jewish settlements to Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
The visits by Middle East envoy George Mitchell, defence secretary Robert Gates and national security adviser Jim Jones were a strong signal from US President Barack Obama of his intention to keep Israeli-Arab peacemaking high on his agenda.
Obama’s demand, in accordance with a 2003 US-backed peace "road map", to freeze Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem has met stiff resistance from Israeli Prime Minister BenjaminNetanyahu. Playing down the most serious rift in US-Israeli ties in a decade, Netanyahu told his cabinet: "It is only natural that, within a fabric of friendly relations between allies, there isn’t full agreement on all points."
He described Israel’srelationship with Washington as "important and steadfast," a departure from tough comments he made only a week ago when he said he would not accept orders from the US on Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said talks with Israel, suspended for more than six months, cannot resume until all Israeli settlement activity ceases.
"We are trying to reach understandings on various issues so that we can, together, advance our common goals: peace, security and prosperity for all of the Middle East,"Netanyahu said.
US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said yesterday that Iran would not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon and reiterated Washington’s commitment to protect Israel from any threat posed by Iran.
Flying into Israel from talks in Damascus with President Bashar al-Assad on the possibility of restarting Israeli-Syrian negotiations, Mitchell discussed a settlement deal and prospects for regional peace with Defence Minister Ehud Barak in Tel Aviv.
Mitchell told reporters he has been urging Arab leaders "to take stepstoward normalisation as gestures of their own to demonstrate that everyone in the region shares thevision of comprehensive peace that we share."
Barak has publicly raised the possibility of halting construction in settlements while allowing building projects under way to continue, as part of a deal in which Arab countries would take initial steps to normalise relations with Israel.
Arab moves toward commercial or diplomatic ties with Israel could help Netanyahu persuade partners in his right-leaning coalition to accept a compromise on settlements.
"I can tell you we here are ready to take whatever reasonable effort to make it happen [regional peace] . . . and, of course, we bear in mind our vital interest, but we understand there are needs of partners as well," Barak said after meeting Mitchell.
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