Obama envoy urges prompt Israeli-Palestinian negotiations

Jun 10, 2009, 19:54 GMT

   Jerusalem - US President Barack Obama wants Israeli- Palestinian peace negotiations to resume - and finish - quickly, his special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, said in Jerusalem on Tuesday.

'We all share an obligation to create the conditions for the prompt resumption and early conclusion of negotiations,' Mitchell told reporters, as he began another round of talks in the region amid US-Israeli tensions over settlements and Palestinian statehood.

His visit comes days after Obama's address to the Muslim world in Cairo, in which he demanded a complete stop to Israeli construction in West Bank settlements. The US president also demanded Israel recognize the Palestinians' right for their own state.

Netanyahu has thus far refused both demands, but is to give a key policy address Sunday, in which some observers say he might, indirectly or directly, make the long-awaited expression of support for a two-state solution to the conflict.

Mitchell made of point of reiterating the US' commitment to Israeli security and of reassuring the two allies remained friends.

'I want to begin by stating clearly and emphatically beyond any doubt that the United States' commitment to the security of Israel remains unshakable,' he said after meeting Israeli President Shimon Peres.

'Let me be clear. These are not disagreements among adversaries. The United States and Israel are and will remain close allies and friends.'

   Netanyahu's office, in a statement, said he and Obama spoke by telephone late Monday and that the Israeli premier had updated the US president 'on his intention to make a diplomatic speech at the beginning of next week in which he will outline his policy to achieve peace and security.'

   'Obama said that he is looking forward to hearing the speech,' the statement said, adding that the two leaders agreed to 'continue maintaining an open and continuous contact' between them, and calling the telephone conversation 'positive.'

   An Israeli newspaper reported Tuesday that Netanyahu believes that Obama, based on his Cairo speech, wants a confrontation with Israel. The Ha'aretz daily quoted the premier's confidants as saying that in Netanyahu's opinion, the Americans believe an open controversy with Israel would serve the Obama administration's main objective of improving US relations with the Arab world.

Mitchell appeared to be backing Netanyahu's demand that the Palestinians' recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people, as a condition for progress toward a final peace treaty.

'We are working hard to achieve the objective of comprehensive peace in the Middle East... which you have referred to, Mr President, including a Palestinian state side by side in peace and security with the Jewish state of Israel,' he told Peres, whose duties as president are largely ceremonial.

   Before a scheduled parley with Netanyahu later Tuesday, Mitchell also met with Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak, of the dovish Labour Party, and with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, of the ultra-nationalist Israel Beiteinu party, the Israeli premier's largest coalition partners.

Lieberman, controversial for his outspoken, hawkish views, seemed to scoff at the international pressure on the new Israeli government, in comments to a parliamentary committee in Jerusalem Tuesday.

'If the international community is incapable of stopping the most isolated and poorest state in the world like North Korea, there isn't a chance they will stop us,' he said.

'No alternative' existed for Israel's relations with the US, but ties with other countries should be developed as well, he said.

Mitchell was due to hold talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah Wednesday, during which Abbas was expected to raise conditions for renewing negotiations with Israel.

Abbas wants an explicit commitment to a two-state solution and a settlement freeze. He also does not want to restart the negotiations from scratch, but rather to resume from the point at which they left off under the previous government of Ehud Olmert.

The visit is Mitchell's third to the region since his appointment in January and his second since the hardline Netanyahu's government took office in March.