Israel, PA to ask Quartet to back continued bilateral talks

By TOVAH LAZAROFF
quartet sharm 248.88 (photo credit: AP)
quartet sharm 248.88
(photo credit: AP)
As US President-elect Barack Obama gears up to make his mark on the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, leaders from both sides are expected to ask the Quartet on Sunday not to launch a new peace initiative but rather to support the continuation of the bilateral talks that have been going on for the last year. If the request is granted, "it will create a new situation in which Israel and the Palestinians won't be bound to a deadline and won't have to deal with a new international initiative," a spokesman for Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told The Jerusalem Post on Saturday night. On Sunday, Livni and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas plan to make their first joint address to the Middle East Quartet, whose representatives will be meeting in Sharm e-Sheikh, since the start of the Annapolis process in November 2007. They head to Sinai after meetings with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who on Saturday praised Abbas's West Bank law-and-order campaign, one of the peace efforts' few tangible successes. After both she and the White House on Thursday acknowledged for the first time that the 2008 deadline for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement would not be met, Rice toured Jenin. Six years ago, Jenin, then know as "the city of suicide bombers," endured some of the bloodiest Israeli-Palestinian fighting. Rice, the first US secretary of state to visit, gushed over the town's return to relative calm since Abbas's forces deployed there in the spring. "That it could be reborn this way is in many ways an affirmation that nothing is impossible," she told reporters at a news conference with PA Prime Minister Salaam Fayad. "Even under difficult circumstances... this is a place of hope, this is a place of inspiration, and ultimately a place from where the Palestinian state will spring up," said Rice, who hailed the West Bank town as a model for Palestinian self-governance. Rice, who is on her eighth visit to Israel and the Palestinians territories in the past year, hopes to consolidate the modest progress and to keep talks alive amid political transitions in the US and Israel. The Quartet is also looking to cement the progress made to date to prevent any back-peddling on the part of future Palestinian and Israeli leaders. In a 45-minute meeting on Friday, Likud Party leader Binyamin Netanyahu told Rice he would not be bound by the promises made to date in the Annapolis process, according to his spokesman Yossi Levy. While he intended to continue talking with the Palestinians, he believes these negotiations must go along a "new path," Levy said. Diplomatic talks needed to go hand-in-hand with economic measures that would improve life on the ground for the Palestinians, such as the development of joint industry projects, he said. "Peace has to be built from the bottom up and can not be imposed from the top down," Levy said. But speaking on the assumption that Livni would head the next government, her spokesman said that what was important was that the Palestinians and the Israeli be allowed to continue the process. After dire warnings from both sides that time was running out for talks, he said, Livni and Abbas now understood that a time line was not to their benefit. "There is a lot of political pressure trying to force Israel and the Palestinians to finish," Livni's spokesman said. To combat that, he said, in recent months, "we have engaged in a political effort to gain international support for the process and for the principles of the process, without [an imposed] time line." The request was not a reaction to the new administration heading into the White House, but rather based on an understanding that this was now what was best for the process, he said. "Our expectation is that the international community will support the process and the principles but won't force us to adhere to a deadline or to produce an interim agreement or a partial agreement," the spokesman said. On Sunday morning, Abbas and Livni are expected to present a closed meeting of the Quartet with a progress report and details of how the negotiations have been conducted. There will then be a press conference, and the Quartet representatives will issue a statement. While there will be broad information given about progress, little is expected to be revealed about the exact nature of the negotiations on borders, refugees and Jerusalem. The Quartet will be represented at the meeting by Rice, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Quartet envoy Tony Blair. On Sunday, Livni is also expected to meet with her counterparts from Jordan, Egypt and Russia, as well as with Ban and Abbas. At a press conference in Ramallah with Abbas on Friday, Rice said that at the "unprecedented meeting," the Quartet "expects to hear about the parties' commitment to the Annapolis process, their views on the progress that has been made on the key issues and their desire for international support for continued efforts. "We expect that the parties will reaffirm their commitment to the two-state solution, to negotiations toward that goal, and to a process that builds on the important progress that has already been achieved. We also expect that the parties will strictly hold to their commitments under the road map," she said. Rice also said that continued "settlement activity, both actions and announcements, is damaging for the atmosphere of negotiations." At the Ramallah press conference, Abbas thanked President George W. Bush for his efforts to achieve peace between the Palestinians and Israel and asked the US to continue to monitor the process. Abbas also reaffirmed his commitment to achieving peace and to a continued dialogue with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, despite the fact that Olmert will leave office after the February 10 elections. "Until the elections - the Israeli elections - take place, we will not waste time and we will not waste this opportunity, but we will continue to discuss all issues, including the day-to-day issues as well as issues of final-status and negotiations," Abbas said.