Welcoming Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to the White House for talks, Obama also predicted “real progress” in coming months in US efforts to nudge the Israelis and Palestinians toward direct peace talks.
The two leaders also discussed specific projects to help improve the plight of Palestinians in Gaza, the status of the peace process and the latest developments in the region.
Obama also discussed a “long-term strategy for progress that we will advance through consultations” with the Palestinians, Israelis, Egyptians and other partners, a White House official said.
Obama called on both the Israelis and Palestinians to “ensure that neither side takes provocative steps that could stand in the way of progress,” according to the official.
Abbas met with Obama a week after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled his own White House trip to deal with the fallout from the May 31 deadly Israeli commando raid on a flotilla of boats seeking to break the Gaza blockade.
Despite the fallout from this, Obama and Abbas deliberated on how to forge progress in proximity talks between Israel and the Palestinians mediated by US envoy George Mitchell.
The United States has joined other foreign governments and the United Nations in calling for an inquiry into the raid with an international component, saying it was key to any investigation's credibility.
But Israel has rejected any international probe into the affair, a topic that featured in Obama's talks with Abbas.
The Palestinian leader arrived in Washington on Tuesday from Turkey, which has fiercely condemned the raid that killed nine activists. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged Abbas during a meeting in Istanbul to patch up his differences with Hamas. Erdogan offered to act as a mediator between the two parties.
Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, who is soon expected to visit the Gaza Strip for the first time, has also offered help.
Back on the West Bank, members of the Palestinian Authority said on Tuesday that it wouldn’t agree to direct negotiations with Israel as long as the proximity talks, which began last month, were not achieving any progress. Tayeb Abdel Rahim, a senior aide to Abbas, said that the Palestinians had recently told Mitchell that Israel’s request to launch direct negotiations was “unacceptable.” The Obama administration, however, is pushing for direct talks, a central issue in Abbas’ White House visit.
Abdel Rahim said that the Palestinians didn’t rule out the possibility that forces belonging to a third party would be deployed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on a temporary basis. Abbas’ aide said that the PA was very keen on ending its dispute with Hamas. However, he blamed the Islamist movement’s “intransigence” for the failure of mediation efforts to solve the crisis.
He said Netanyahu was not really interested in moving the peace process forward. On the contrary, he continued, “Netanyahu wants to destroy the peace process by ignoring the Arab Peace Initiative and the Quartet’s road map plan.”
Abbas’s visit to Washington comes as he continues to face immense pressure to achieve “reconciliation” with Hamas.
US-mediated indirect Israeli-Palestinian proximity talks have been underway for just over the past month, with peace envoy George Mitchell having shuttled to the region to conduct a third round last week.
Abbas first met one on one with Obama at the White House at 11 a.m. and then they had an expanded meeting, which included two questions at a noon press pool.
Abbas then had lunch with Mitchell and later met with National Security Adviser James Jones. Later in the day, former Florida Democratic Congressman Robert Wexler hosted a private dinner for Abbas with some 30 Jewish community leaders and former officials.
On Thursday, Abbas will speak at the Brookings Institution, and then go to Capitol Hill, where he meets with Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
With input from agencies
