Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas held talks on Palestinian statehood yesterday but
discussed core issues only in broad terms, a senior Palestinian
official said.
Abbas has been pressing for the highly contentious matters of
borders and the future of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees to be
included in his discussions with Olmert ahead of a US-sponsored
Middle East conference expected in November.
But Saeb Erekat, a senior Abbas adviser who attended the meeting
with Olmert in Jerusalem, told reporters: "These talks did not
reach the level of details."
Abbas said on Monday the international gathering proposed by US
President George W. Bush would be a waste of time if Israel pressed
ahead with plans to pursue only a broadbrush "declaration of
principles".
Israeli officials have used that phrase to describe what Olmert
might offer in answer to calls for rapid, final talks in detail on
establishing a Palestinian state.
David Baker, an Israeli government spokesman, said Abbas and
Olmert held two hours of "one-on-one" talks and spoke about
fundamental issues which would lead to the establishment of two
states for two peoples. Baker declined to define the subjects.
Olmert hosted Abbas, whose Fatah faction lost control of the
Gaza Strip to Hamas Islamists in fighting in June, at his official
Jerusalem residence. They last met three weeks ago in the West Bank
town of Jericho.
Israeli political commentators said Olmert, weakened by the
failings of his government and the military in last year's Lebanon
war, was in no rush to take on "final-status" issues in depth and
risk splitting a Cabinet that includes the far right.
"I do not want to belittle the negotiations but also I do not
want to raise expectations," Erekat said. Olmert and Abbas, he
said, would continue to "exert every effort" in pursuit of the
creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
The United States hopes the Middle East conference can expedite
Palestinian statehood despite the current split between the West
Bank, where a Fatah-backed government holds sway, and Hamas-run
Gaza.
Hamas called the Abbas-Olmert meeting another attempt to isolate
it.
(China Daily via agencies August 29, 2007)
