With the United States claiming that Israeli and Palestinian representatives are
expected to meet with members of the Quartet in mid- December, top Palestinian
negotiator Saeb Erekat said Tuesday that attempts by the Quartet earlier this
week to lay the groundwork for talks had failed.
“Quartet attempts to
create an atmosphere suitable to relaunch negotiations and convince Israel to
stop building in settlements have failed,” Erekat told Agence France Presse in
reacting to an Israeli announcement that new building tenders would be issued
for Jerusalem neighborhoods over the pre-1967 lines.
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Government officials
in Jerusalem said that despite the disappointing results of the second round of
talks that Quartet figures held separately with Israeli and Palestinian
officials earlier this week, Israel would support “all steps designed to bring
about the expeditious beginning of direct talks.”
One official said
Israel hoped the international community would step in and place pressure on the
Palestinian Authority to restart the negotiations without preconditions. The
Palestinians say they will resume talks only if Israel freezes all settlement
construction beyond the Green Line and agrees that a Palestinian state within
the contours of the 1967 lines would serve as the basis for the
negotiations.
The official said he could not imagine Israel turning down
an invitation to another round of Quartet-mediated talks, but stressed that
those discussions were not seen as a substitute for direct talks between the
parties themselves on the core issues of security, borders, Jerusalem and
refugees.
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