Awaiting Obama: Mideast peace Put on hold

This news updete by topnews.in



Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt - With an admitted US failure to make Middle East peace a reality before the end of this year as promised by the now outgoing US President George W Bush, the international Quartet on the Middle East is meeting on Sunday with Palestinian and Israeli delegations in the Egyptian Red Sea city of Sharm el-Sheikh.

The ministerial-level Quartet will hear from both the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on what blocked the anticipated peace deal.

The Palestinian and Israeli negotiating team will directly brief the Quartet on the outcome of their negotiations, in two independent reports.

Quartet members - the US, Russia, European Union and the United Nations - would take their independent notes and issue a joint communiqué that reflects progress without specifying conclusions.

The communiqué would also express support for the continuation of the peace process under the new US administration of Barack Obama and a new Israeli government that should be elected next February, diplomatic sources who asked to stay unnamed told Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa.

The foreign ministers of Egypt and Jordan, the two Arab states that have peace treaties with Israel, may take part in Sunday's meeting. The two are delegated by the Arab League to discuss the Arabe Peace Initiative with Israel.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said Friday that Egypt was hoping that the meeting would produce "a peace document" that merges the basic conclusions of the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations.

However, informed Arab, Western and Israeli diplomats have told dpa that it is unlikely the meeting will adopt any such document.

Arab peace process diplomats say this would simply mean that a year of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations could be scrapped and might have to start all over again under Obama - whenever he is ready.

In a meeting scheduled to take place in Sharm el-Sheikh on Saturday, the secretary general of the Arab League, the foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan and several other Arab countries that support the peace process are expected to demand assurances from the Quartet that those issues already agreed on in the year-long final status talks should not be open up again.

It is unlikely, however, that the Quartet would meet their demand, diplomatic sources told dpa.

The final status talks between Palestinian and Israelis should end the struggle between the two sides and allow for the establishment of a viable and independent Palestinian state to live side by side in peace with Israel.

Palestinian diplomats say they are dismayed but not surprised at the failure of the negotiations.

In the words of one Palestinian diplomat in Cairo who also asked to remain anonymous, "The Americans who launched this process back in Annapolis in November 2007 did not intervene enough. Despite her sequence of visits to the Middle East (US Secretary of State Condoleezza) Rice did not pressure the Israeli side and was on the substance of negotiations and was just pressuring us on issues related to Israeli security demands."

Other Arab diplomats in Cairo have also blamed the failure of talks to reach a final status agreement, or even a declaration of principles for a final settlement, on a lack of "firm" US intervention with the Israeli side.

These diplomats warn that if the Obama administration adopted the hands off approach an end to the Palestinian-Israeli struggle would remain a tough objective to secure.

The meetings are taking place against the backdrop of Egypt's failure to kickstart inter-Palestinian reconciliation talks.

Without Palestinian reconciliation Abbas will be unable to secure an extension of his term in office that legally expires on January 9 2009.

This could mean that when Obama enters the Oval Office in January he will be looking for the election of a new Israeli and Palestinian leaders.



Via news