Netanyahu heads to US; Obama parley unconfirmed (Roundup)

Nov 8, 2009, 13:18 GMT

Tel Aviv - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday left for the United States, but it was unclear whether he would meet with President Barack Obama during his visit.

Netanyahu is set to address Jewish community activists in the US and although Israeli media reported that he would also meet Obama on Monday, there was no official confirmation that a meeting would take place.

A spokesman for Netanyahu said that the trip had been planned independent of any expected parley with Obama.

'If the trip's objective had been to meet with the president of the United States then such a meeting would have been secured in advance of the trip,' Nir Hefez told Israel Radio.

Netanyahu's visit to the US comes amid a huge question mark over the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, following the announcement by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that he will not seek re-election in the upcoming elections, and the efforts by Israel and Washington to find a formula which will facilitate a resumption of peace talks.

The negotiations were suspended a year ago as Israel entered an election period, and have not been renewed since Netanyahu took office at the end of March.

Palestinians insist they will not return to the negotiating table unless Israel completely halts all construction in West Bank settlements.

Netanyahu has said that while Israel will build no new settlements, it will go ahead with construction inside existing ones, to facilitate population expansion, so-called 'natural growth.'

The Obama administration, which initially demanded the complete construction halt, has been holding talks with Israeli officials for months to try and find a compromise on the issue.

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said at the end of October that while the demand for a complete construction halt was an 'issue within the negotiations,' it was not a prerequisite for starting peace talks.

Her remarks angered Palestinians, and some analysts said it was the 'last straw' which made Abbas decide not to run for re-election in the Palestinian elections scheduled for January 24 next year.

Explaining his decision last week not to run, Abbas complained that since the 1993 interim Oslo accords, 'month after month, and year after year, stalling, delaying and an increase in Israeli settlement activities began to undermine the credibility of the negotiations.'

Israeli President Shimon Peres, addressing a rally in Tel Aviv Saturday night to mark the 14th anniversary of the assassination of former Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin, appealed to Abbas to reconsider his decision.

'We both signed the Oslo Accord, and I am turning to you now as a colleague: Don't give up,' he said.

Obama said in a video message to the rally 'that Israelis will not find true security while the Palestinians are gripped by hopelessness and despair.'

'It is up to us to carry on' the work of Rabin towards peace, he added, quoting Rabin as having said that the only battle it was a pleasure to wage was the battle for peace.

Rabin, who with Peres as his foreign minister signed the Oslo accords in 1993, was shot on November 4, 1995, while exiting a pro-peace rally in Tel Aviv.

His assassin, an extremist religions nationalist who opposed any compromise with the Palestinians, is now serving life in jail.