JERUSALEM: Israel and the Palestinians are sending top officials to Washington for talks, the two sides announced on Wednesday, to try to rescue a Middle East peace process in crisis.
The peace process appeared to be in tatters after Washington on Tuesday admitted defeat in its efforts to secure an Israeli freeze on settlement building, the Palestinians’ condition for resuming direct peace talks.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat is to meet US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington within “the next 48 hours,” Yasser Abed Rabbo, spokesman for Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, told AFP.
And Israel’s Defence Minister Ehud Barak was also travelling to Washington for “meetings with senior US defence and administration officials,” his office said.
The flurry in diplomacy comes after US officials admitted that efforts to coax Israel into imposing new curbs on West Bank settlement construction had failed, prompting Abbas to declare a crisis in peace efforts.
Without a new freeze, the Palestinians have refused to negotiate, effectively deadlocking direct talks which were launched on September 2 only to run aground three weeks later when building resumed in West Bank settlements.
But the United States said it was holding out hope a peace deal can still be reached next year, a target it set as the chief broker before direct talks resumed in Washington amid fanfare but little optimism from the two sides.
“We’re shifting our approach, but are still focused on the goal of a framework agreement within a year … We believe that’s still achievable,” State Department spokesman PJ Crowley told reporters in Washington.
“Obviously a lot of hard work is going have to be done, it’s not going to be easy, but we haven’t changed our objective” set in August of reaching a peace agreement within 12 months, he said.
Speaking in Athens, Abbas said: “There is no doubt that there is a crisis,” and Abed Rabbo said it was likely the two sides would have to return to indirect “proximity talks.”
“This impasse has led the US administration to choose another method, which is returning to indirect talks … to move the peace process past this impasse and address the final-status issues,” he told Voice of Palestine radio.
Erakat said his side now hoped Washington would recognise a Palestinian state as a way to break the deadlock. “We hope that the American administration would recognise the Palestinian state within the 1967 borders as a response to Israel’s settlement diktats and other unilateral measures,” Erakat said in Cairo.
Speaking on the sidelines of a meeting between Abbas and Arab League chief Amr Mussa, he said the Palestinian leader would consult with his Arab counterparts before responding to fresh US proposals.
On Thursday, Abbas is to hold talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Washington had been trying for weeks to convince Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to impose a new moratorium on settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, after a 10-month partial ban ran out in September.
A spokesman for Netanyahu said Washington’s announcement marked a welcome acknowledgement by President Barack Obama’s administration that freezing construction was not the way to achieve peace.
“We said from the outset that settlements were not the root of the conflict and that it was only a Palestinian excuse for refusing to talk,” Nir Hefetz said.
However, Crowley said the announcement did not signal a change in US opposition, pointing out Washington “does not accept the legitimacy” of new Israeli construction in the occupied Palestinian territory.
The European Union also reiterated its opposition. “I note with regret that Israel has not been in a position to accept an extension of the moratorium,” EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said.
“The EU position on settlements is clear: they are illegal under international law and an obstacle to peace.”
But he Israeli right was delighted with the refusal to bow to pressure from its main ally, with deputy parliament speaker Danny Danon praising Netanyahu for rebuffing US calls for another “damaging and pointless” freeze.
