US envoy begins Mideast peace push

US ENVOY George Mitchell began a new swing through the Mideast yesterday with a call for a rapid resumption of peace talks, as the White House tried to push Israel to halt settlement construction in the West Bank.

Mitchell met with Israel’s defence minister, who helps oversee settlement policy, and was slated to hold talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu has refused to accept US calls to support the creation of a Palestinian state and freeze settlement construction on captured lands claimed by the Palestinians. That has led to the most public disagreement between Israel and the US in a decade.

“We all share an obligation to create the conditions for the prompt resumption and early conclusion of negotiations,” Mitchell said at a meeting with Israel’s president, Shimon Peres.

But he also tried to calm Israeli nerves, saying the policy gaps “are not disagreements among adversaries” and that the two countries “remain close allies and friends”.

In Mitchell’s meeting with the defence minister, Ehud Barak, the two discussed the question of settlement construction, Barak’s office said.

Netanyahu is set to deliver a major policy speech on Sunday. The Israeli leader spoke to US president Barack Obama late on Monday, and Obama said he is looking forward to the upcoming speech, according to statements from Netanyahu’s office and the White House.

Mitchell will meet with Palestinian leaders, including President Mahmoud Abbas, today. Nabil Abu Rdeneh, an aide to Abbas, said the Palestinians would ask the US to impose a timetable for negotiations and “expedite the creation of a Palestinian state”.

After his visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories, Mitchell will continue to Syria and to Lebanon, where a pro-Western coalition supported by the US won a crucial election this week, fending off a challenge from a coalition backed by the pro-Iranian Hezbollah party.