RAMALLAH/GAZA CITY, 8 October 2007 — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said at the start of yesterday’s Cabinet meeting that he and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas did not come to any conclusion during their meeting last week, meant to jumpstart negotiations before a US-sponsored Middle East peace conference scheduled to take place in Annapolis, in late November.
“There were no agreements or summations between me and Abu Mazen,” he said, referring to Abbas. Olmert also said that, during the meeting, the two “surveyed the problems and the central issues that are the basis for negotiations that will lead to two states for two peoples. The meetings with Abbas up till now have been brain-storming”
“The main goal of the international summit is to give backing and encouragement to the process, but it is by no means a substitute for direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians,” Olmert said.
He told the Cabinet that “any solution that will be reached will be dependent on the implementation of the (International Quartet’s) road map (peace plan) principles with an emphasis on the order of action it calls for, which is of special importance.”
The road map lays out a three-stage program for establishing a Palestinian state, and states that in the first stage, the Palestinian Authority must wage war on terrorism and reform PA institutions, while Israel must remove all illegal settlement outposts established in the West Bank since 2001.
Addressing concerns expressed by some in his Kadima party and the government regarding negotiations with the Palestinians, Olmert said: “We are holding different discussions, also within the government, in order to reach an internal agreement on political matters.”
The Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams will begin today to draft the joint statement they will present at the summit. The nature of the document has sparked some tension between the sides, as the Palestinians seek a detailed document that addresses final-status issues while Israel would like a vaguer document with no more than a mention of those issues.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is to arrive in Israel and the Palestinian territories next week to see if a joint statement can include the core issues.
The head of the Palestinian team said Saturday that the joint document will be the basis for the final settlement.
Meanwhile, Palestinians fired a rocket into southern Israel yesterday from the Gaza Strip. The 122mm Katyusha rocket struck an open area near the southern Israeli community of Netivot, igniting a small fire that was put out immediately. No one was injured. The Popular Resistance Committees, a small Palestinian group, claimed responsibility.
