PLO agrees to US-mediated peace talks with Israel

A SCEPTICAL Palestinian leadership agreed yesterday to hold US-mediated peace talks with Israel for four months, effectively ending a 14-month breakdown in communications between the two sides.

The decision marks a first achievement for US diplomacy in the Israeli-Palestinian arena. However, the Palestinians warned they would walk away if the outlines of a border deal with Israel have not emerged after four months.

They also ruled out subsequent direct talks without a complete Israeli settlement construction freeze.

“This peace process cannot go on forever,” said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. “Now it’s time for decisions.”

Erekat said he did not know when the indirect talks would begin.

The decision by the Palestine Liberation Organisation to resume talks came a day before US Vice-President Joseph Biden begins the highest-level visit to the area by an Obama administration official. US mediator George Mitchell was in the region yesterday, presumably for final preparations for negotiations. He met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and is to hold talks today with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas. In coming months, Mitchell is expected to shuttle between Abbas’s headquarters in Ramallah and Netanyahu’s office, a half hour away in Jerusalem.

Netanyahu has welcomed the prospect of negotiations. However, he has also staked out tougher positions than his predecessor, refusing to consider a partition of Jerusalem and insisting on keeping key areas of the West Bank.

Netanyahu has also resisted a complete settlement freeze, agreeing only to curb construction in the West Bank for 10 months, but not in east Jerusalem, the Palestinians’s hoped-for capital.