Mitchell meets Jordan's king, urges tangible steps to resume talks

Sep 17, 2009, 18:56 GMT

Amman - US Middle East envoy George Mitchell on Thursday held talks with Jordan's King Abdullah II and urged Israel, the Palestinians and Arab states to take 'tangible steps' to ensure a resumption of peace negotiations, according to the official Petra news agency.

He said both Israel and the Arab states should take 'tangible steps to develop positive atmospheres for restarting negotiations'.

Mitchell referred to US pressures on Israel to stop all settlement activity in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, which the Jewish state captured from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war.

The US envoy also reportedly wanted Arab states to take certain normalization steps with Israel to encourage its right-wing government to return to the negotiating table with the Palestinians.

Mitchell described his meeting with King Abdullah as 'excellent' and said that the United States and Jordan had 'a strong commitment to resolve the Palestinian Israeli conflict through the two-state formula.'

From his part, Abdullah made it clear that a 'total freeze' of Jewish settlements was a prerequisite for restarting meaningful negotiations.

'The monarch warned against losing the chance currently available for achieving peace and urged the derailment of any Israeli scheme that seeks to sabotage the resumption of peace talks,' a royal court statement said.

He accused the Israeli government of trying to 'create a vacuum through which it can impose the status quo and continue building settlements and other unilateral measures that demolish the chances of setting up an independent Palestinian state.'

King Abdullah vowed to work with US President Barack Obama 'to achieve comprehensive and durable peace in the region in accordance with the approved references that envisage the creation of an independent Palestinian state on the Palestinian soil.'

He urged the United States to 'play a leading role in these negotiations and to lay down the appropriate mechanism that ensures the talks lead to the two-state solution within the globally accepted regional context and within a definite timetable.'

Mitchell visited Amman in the course of a regional tour that has, so far, taken him to Israel, the Palestinian territories and Egypt.

He is due to travel to Israel on Friday for further talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who gave interviews Thursday saying that he would not allow a complete halt to settlement activity in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.