Israel: Three-way summit not start of Mideast peace negotiations

Sep 20, 2009, 13:28 GMT

Tel Aviv - A meeting of the leaders of the US, Israel and the Palestinian Authority next week will not mark the start of new Mideast peace negotiations, Israeli media reported Sunday, citing high-ranking members of the Israeli government.

According to the report, the Tuesday meeting will only prepare the groundwork for possible further meetings.

The White House announced Saturday that US President Barack Obama would host a trilateral meeting Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

But the Israeli Foreign Ministry on Sunday demanded that both sides to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict forego preconditions.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday in Cairo announced that he would in the talks call on Israel to stop the expansion of Jewish settlements.

Meanwhile, the radical Islamist Hamas organization, which rules the Gaza Strip, stipulated that Abbas of the rival Fatah organization did not have the right to negotiate on behalf of the Palestinians.

High ranking Hamas politician Ismail Haniya further claimed before thousands gathered in a Gaza mosque Sunday that the Obama administration was no different from previous US administrations, as the goal of negotations - in his opinion - was the same: to keep Palestinians at a disadvantage in negotiations with Israel.

Palestinians are being asked to give up the right of return of refugees as well as their right to East Jerusalem, while Israeli settlement blocs remain untouched, Haniya said. As such, he added, any agreements made during the talks would be nonbinding.

The surprise announcement of the trilateral meeting followed the failure of US Mideast envoy George Mitchell to achieve a compromise on Israeli settlement construction, which would have facilitated an Israeli-Palestinian meeting and helped restart stalled peace talks.

 The trilateral meeting will be preceded by bilateral meetings between Obama and the two leaders, White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs said Saturday, to lay the groundwork for the relaunch of negotiations.