PM: Foreign minister not bound by my views on Israeli withdrawal.
By HERB KEINONOlmert 88(photo credit: )
A day after Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni made clear that she did not feel obligated by the far-reaching concessions Prime Minister Ehud Olmert proposed in an interview last week with Yediot Aharonot, Olmert clarified that the views expressed were his own, and were not binding on Livni.
Speaking to reporters Monday before leaving for a 24-hour visit to Moscow, Olmert said, "The positions I expressed in the interview about territorial exchange were my positions, and only I am obligated by them. It is my opinion. This does not bind Mrs. Livni. I stand by my words, and I alone am responsible for them. But they do not in any way bind Mrs. Livni."
Olmert, in the interview, said that for peace Israel would have to withdraw from nearly all of the Golan Heights, east Jerusalem and the West Bank. Livni on Sunday made clear both in a speech to a Foreign Ministry conference and in a meeting she had with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner that she did not feel obligated by Olmert's words.
Kouchner, in a briefing with French journalists, said that Livni made it clear to him that she didn't feel obligated by what Kouchner termed the "Olmert Plan." Foreign Ministry officials on Monday tried to explain to a few French journalists who called asking why Livni rejected this "plan" that there was no such thing as an "Olmert Plan," but rather merely some ideas expressed in a newspaper interview.
Despite already having announced his resignation from office, Olmert told reporters that he remained optimistic about an agreement with the Palestinians. "An agreement with the Palestinians is possible by the end of the year," he claimed, "but it is very much dependent on the will of the Palestinians."
These words clashed with what Livni said on Sunday, which is that she was opposed to any interim agreements, and even Olmert has said that an agreement signed by the end of the year would not include the issue of Jerusalem.
"The first thing that we agreed on was that nothing was agreed until everything was agreed," she said. Then, apparently taking a swipe at the headline-grabbing Olmert interview, she said, "We agreed that the negotiations would be conducted in the negotiating rooms and not through newspaper headlines, and that is how the negotiations must continue."
She also cautioned the Palestinians against letting "random dates or political changes" force them into thinking that something partial must be achieved, warning that such an agreement - made to beat a deadline or political changes - would "remain afterwards as a paper and a disappointment. That would be a mistake that we cannot allow ourselves - neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians nor the entire world."
Olmert, meanwhile, is expected to discuss the Palestinian negotiations, proposed Russian arms sales to Syria and Iran and the Georgian crisis when he meets Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Tuesday in Moscow. Olmert, who arrived Monday evening in the Russian capital for a 24-hour visit, met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
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