JERUSALEM/CAIRO, 25 December 2007 — Israeli-Palestinian peace talks bogged down in disagreement last night for a second time after the Palestinians ruled out addressing core issues until Israel agreed to stop settlement building near Jerusalem.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat called the US-backed negotiations, the first in seven years, “very difficult” because of Israel’s refusal to commit to halting all settlement activity as called for under the long-stalled “road map” peace plan. “This is illegal,” Erekat said he told the Israelis.
Israel’s negotiating team countered that the road map calls on the Palestinians to rein in militants in the occupied West Bank and Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip as a condition for establishing a Palestinian state.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet later this week to try to salvage talks launched at a peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland, last month. They set the goal of reaching a statehood deal before US President George W. Bush leaves office in January 2009. Bush will visit the region early next month.
Ahead of yesterday’s session, Israeli ministers met to consider relaxing Israel’s criteria for releasing Palestinian prisoners. Easing Israeli restrictions on releasing prisoners with so-called “blood on their hands,” a reference to attacks against Israelis, was part of efforts to secure a swap deal with Hamas for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
Israel’s deputy defense minister, Matan Vilnai, said Marwan Barghouthi, a Palestinian uprising leader from Fatah who is seen as a possible successor to President Mahmoud Abbas, could be a candidate for release.
“Up to now, our hands have been tied. This will open the door for additional prisoner releases for Abbas,” a senior Israeli official said on condition of anonymity. But Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence agency opposed the changes and the closed-door meeting ended without any decisions.
Teams headed by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Palestinian ex-Premier Ahmed Qorei met at a Jerusalem hotel, officials on both sides said.
A day before they met, it was revealed that Israel was planning to expand two settlements in occupied Palestinian territory next year. “Discussions today will focus on only one issue — how to stop the settlements on Palestinian land,” Erekat earlier said.
“We are ready to take the opportunity to negotiate, but we want to see the facts on the ground and we see no need for negotiations while settlements are going on,” he said. “We want to hear an answer from the Israeli side on whether they want to stop the settlements before” a planned visit by Bush in January.
Earlier, Livni slammed Egypt saying that its actions along the Philadelphi Route (Salah Eddin route on the border between Gaza Strip and Egypt) harm Israel’s ability to promote the peace process with the Palestinians.
Livni told the Knesset’s (parliament) Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that “the need to dramatically decrease the amount of arms that are being smuggled into Gaza is an Israeli strategic goal, and of course this affects our relations with Egypt.”
“The Egyptians played a positive role at the Annapolis Conference, but that does not contradict the fact that what they are doing at Philadelphi is deplorable and problematic”, Israeli Radio cited her saying.
In Cairo, Egypt’s foreign minister and a visiting Palestinian official yesterday said Israel’s construction plans for a contested East Jerusalem neighborhood and West Bank endanger the Mideast peace process.
A statement from the office of Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said he has been having “urgent contacts” with US officials on the issue. Senior Palestinian official, Azzam Al-Ahmed, also voiced concerns about the building during a meeting here yesterday with Amr Moussa, the Arab League chief.
