Israeli-Palestinian peace talks to resume after three years
Tuesday, 30 July 2013 00:12
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Reuters: Israel and the Palestinians plan to resume peace negotiations this week for the first time in nearly three years after an intense effort by US Secretary of State John Kerry to bring them back to the table.
The talks are scheduled to resume in Washington on Monday evening and Tuesday and will be conducted by senior aides to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the State Department said.
“Both leaders have demonstrated a willingness to make difficult decisions that have been instrumental in getting to this point. We are grateful for their leadership,” Kerry said in a statement.
Middle East analysts voiced skepticism that the talks might lead to a peace treaty to end the more than six-decade conflict that has defied two decades of U.S. efforts to broker a solution.
Still, the resumption of negotiations is a rare moment of good news in the Middle East for the Obama administration, which has struggled to formulate a policy to try to end the civil war in Syria or to facilitate a democratic transition in Egypt.
Even getting the Israelis and the Palestinians to agree to resume talks required great effort by Kerry, who made six peace-making trips to the region in the last four months - an unusual amount of time - to coax the two sides back.
The last piece of the puzzle came together when the Israeli Cabinet on Sunday approved the release of 104 Palestinian prisoners, with 13 ministers voting for the release, seven against and two abstaining, an Israeli official said.
In another sign of possible momentum, Martin Indyk, a former US ambassador to Israel who directs the foreign policy program at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, is expected to be named as the new US envoy for Middle East peace, possibly as early as Monday, a source familiar with the matter said.
The last round of direct negotiations broke down in late 2010 in a dispute over Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank, land that Israel seized in a 1967 war, along with the Gaza Strip, which the Palestinians want for a state.
It is unclear how the United States hopes to bridge the core issues in the dispute, including borders, the future of Jewish settlements on the West Bank, the fate of Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem.
While commending Kerry for his determination, Shibley Telhami, Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland, said President Barack Obama would have to get involved if the talks were ultimately to succeed and the United States would have to offer its own ideas for a solution.
