Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to put a public row with Washington behind him yesterday in talks with a US special envoy trying to revive Middle East peace talks.
Netanyahu said he hopes to start “normal talks” with Palestinians shortly, as he held discussions in London with US President Barack Obama’s Middle East envoy George Mitchell, the Israeli prime minister’s spokesman said.
Mitchell is pressing the hawkish Netanyahu to freeze Jewish settlement construction in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, where the Palestinians want to build their future state and capital along with Gaza.
With the international community backing the US demand, the Israeli prime minister finds himself trying to placate intense diplomatic pressure while keeping together his right-leaning coalition government.
Briefing reporters traveling with him, Netanyahu said “the question of the settlements is a problem, but the main problem is the [Palestinian] refusal to recognize Israel as the Jewish state.”
At the start of his meeting with Mitchell, Netanyahu said talks were “making headway” and expressed hope that “we will shortly be able to resume normal talks” with the Palestinians, according to his spokesman Mark Regev.
Netanyahu also said that “the common goal” was to end the decades-old Israeli-Arab conflict and reach regional peace.
But officials said no breakthrough was expected in yesterday’s meeting, which comes a day after Netanyahu met British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who called settlements a barrier to peace.
Israel and US official are eyeing a three-way summit between Obama, Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas next month on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly to signal the relaunching of peace talks.
First launched in 1993, the last round of Middle East peace talks was halted last December after Israel launched a military offensive in the Hamas-ruled Gaza.
The Palestinians today made the return to the negotiating table conditional on a full Israeli settlement freeze.
Netanyahu has rejected a total freeze, insisting on the need to guarantee “normal life” in settlements home to 500,000 Israelis.
The Guardian newspaper in London reported yesterday, however, that Israel was nearing an agreement on a partial settlement freeze in exchange for tougher sanctions against Iran over its controversial nuclear program.
Speaking after meeting Brown, Netanyahu said he wanted to find with Mitchell “a bridging formula that will enable us [to] at once launch a process but enable those residents [in settlements] to continue living normal lives.”
But he also sought to place the onus on the Palestinians, saying he has already taken steps towards a two-state solution and the easing of the Palestinians’ economy and living condition.
A “winning formula” would be if the Palestinians accepted a demilitarized state and recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people, he said.
“We’ve moved on the ground, I’ve also moved not only in deed but in word ... The absence of such clear and forthright expression by the Palestinian leadership of such recognition has been what is holding peace up,” he said.
‘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
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
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS