Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will try to draw up a document of understandings with the Palestinians to present to Washington before his party names his successor, Israeli officials said yesterday.
Olmert was to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who had been cool to the idea of any partial agreement, later yesterday, two days after the Israeli leader was questioned again by police in a corruption scandal forcing him from office.
Olmert’s Kadima party will hold an election on Sept. 17 to replace him and he has said he would resign after the ballot, although he could stay on as caretaker prime minister for weeks or months.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the front-runner, has cautioned against papering over differences with Abbas in talks and rushing towards an accord. Her comments have been echoed by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Israeli officials confirmed media reports that Olmert wanted to compile with Abbas over the next two weeks a document of understandings that would serve as a framework for a peace deal.
Olmert and Abbas would aim to take the paper to Washington so that US President George W. Bush — who has voiced optimism he could leave office with an Israeli-Palestinian agreement — could announce a deal, one official said.
Yasser Abed Rabbo, an aide to Abbas, said it was “premature to speak about a document.”
He said “the differences on the core issues are still very wide.”
Olmert spokesman Mark Regev, while acknowledging that Israel would press on with efforts “to reach a historic” agreement, said he was not aware of any time limit.
Livni and former Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qorei have been leading their respective negotiating teams since the peace process was formally relaunched under US auspices nine months ago.
Regev insisted Olmert’s early departure from office would not interfere with the talks.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
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