Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
US speeds up shuttle diplomacy on Palestinian statehood
JERUSALEM: US Secretary of State John Kerry accelerated his Middle East shuttle diplomacy yesterday in the hope of persuading the Palestinians to resume direct peace negotiations with Israel, stalled over its West Bank settlements.
After seeing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Jordan, Kerry went to Jerusalem for talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The talks suggest new urgency to the top US diplomat’s monthly missions.
Direct negotiations broke down in late 2010 in a dispute over Israel’s settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Abbas has insisted that building in the settlements, viewed as illegal by most world powers, be halted for talks to resume. He also wants Israel to recognise the boundary of the West Bank as the basis for the future Palestine’s border.
Israel wants to keep settlement blocs under any future peace accord and has rejected Abbas’s demands as preconditions. But it has also quietly slowed down on settlements.
Asked whether Kerry’s visit – his fifth – could bring a breakthrough, Zeev Elkin, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, said: “The only one who knows the answer to that question is not Kerry nor Netanyahu, but Abu Mazen (Abbas).”
Kerry said he would not have returned to the region if he did not believe there could be progress. He is also keen to clinch a peacemaking deal before the UN General Assembly – which has granted de facto recognition to a Palestinian state – convenes in September.
Netanyahu is concerned that the Palestinians, in the absence of direct peace talks, could use the UN session as a springboard for further statehood moves circumventing Israel.
State Department officials believe the sides will return to talks once there is an agreement on confidence-building measures, such as partial Israeli amnesty for Palestinian security prisoners. – Reuters