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.
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