PM to Kerry: Peace talks top Israel's agenda

Netanyahu tells Kerry "when there's a will, we'll find a way."

By JPOST.COM STAFF
Kerry Bibi by Marc 370 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)
Kerry Bibi by Marc 370
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)
Reviving peace talks with the Palestinians tops Israel's agenda, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told US Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday as they met in Jerusalem at the start of the American diplomat's latest visit to the region.
"This is something that both you and I want, and I hope also the Palestinians want," Netanyahu said as they posed for the media at the start of their meeting. He noted that the pair would also discuss the Syria crisis and the Iranian nuclear threat.
"We ought to be successful. When there's a will, we'll find a way", Netanyahu told Kerry.
Netanyahu also hailed the "extraordinary resolution" overwhelmingly passed Wednesday by the US Senate, stating that the US should support Israel if it were forced to defend itself from an Iranian nuclear threat.
"I know this region well enough to know that there is scepticism, in some quarters there is cynicism and there are reasons for it. There have been bitter years of disappointment," Kerry said as he and Netanyahu posed for pictures.
"It is our hope that by being methodical, careful, patient, but detailed and tenacious, that we can lay out a path ahead that can conceivably surprise people but certainly exhaust the possibilities of peace."
OLD FRIENDS: Binyamin Netanyahu shows off the image gifted to him by John Kerry
Kerry was also scheduled to meet Thursday with President Shimon Peres and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who will be in charge of negotiations with the Palestinians, if and when Kerry gets them off the ground.
This will be Livni’s third meeting with Kerry this month, having met with him already in Washington and Rome. This will be Kerry’s fourth visit to the region since US President Barack Obama visited Israel in late March.
Officials in the Prime Minister’s Office said that Netanyahu and Kerry speak on a regular basis, about once “every two to three days.”
Kerry is only expected to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday in Jordan, at the World Economic Forum.