Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas proposed Wednesday the start
of "backdoor" negotiations with the Israeli Government on the most
difficult problems of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
"It is the right time to talk about this issue seriously," Abbas
told reporters after he met Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on
Tuesday.
Recent weeks have seen a growing momentum towards reviving
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert meeting Abbas on Saturday and the Iraq Study Group, a
bipartisan Washington commission, reporting to US President George
W. Bush that progress on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute would
contribute to reducing the conflict in Iraq.
Abbas did not spell out why he was proposing that the
negotiations with Israel be "backdoor" meaning conducted out of the
media spotlight. But as one of the architects of the Oslo peace
accord between Israel and the Palestinians in 1993, he is known to
champion quiet, informal diplomacy.
"We have the idea of a backdoor channel between us and the
Israelis, with the participation of one or all members of the
Quartet to discuss all the issues of the final status," Abbas said,
referring to the four powers the United States, Russia, European
Union and the United Nations that oversee the peace process.
Abbas said he had proposed backdoor negotiations to Prime
Minister Olmert at their weekend meeting, and that the Israeli
leader had no immediate objection and promised to consider it.
Abbas said he planned to discuss the idea with US Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice when she comes to the Middle East next
month.
"This is not secret negotiations, therefore, they would help
more than they would harms," Abbas said.
Thorny issues
Abbas made clear he wanted the talks to focus on the issues that
have been the hardest to resolve in previous negotiations the
future of Palestinian refugees, the sovereignty of Jerusalem which
both Israelis and Palestinians claim as their capital, and the
borders of the future Palestinian state.
It is not clear if Olmert, who is under pressure from hard-line
Israelis opposed to withdrawal from the West Bank, would agree to
tackle the thorniest issues rather than proceed by the more
cautious route of step-by-step negotiations and interim
agreements.
?
It is equally unclear what would be the reaction of Hamas, the
party that dominates the Palestinian cabinet, to what might emerge
from backdoor talks with Israel.
Hamas, which refuses to recognize Israel, is believed to favor a
limited truce with the Jewish state in exchange for its complete
withdrawal from the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was quoted Wednesday as
saying she believed in negotiations with the Palestinians, even
when fighting is under way.
"Even during (former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon's term
of office, I claimed that we shouldn't say that we won't talk under
fire," Livni told Israeli paper Haaretz in an
interview.
Olmert is expected to meet Mubarak in the Red Sea resort of
Sharm el-Sheik on January 4, Olmert's office said Wednesday.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit met Israeli officials
in Jerusalem later Wednesday to prepare for the summit.
Egypt has played a major role in mediating between Israel and
the Palestinians, and has been trying to negotiate the release of
an Israeli soldier captured by militants linked to Hamas in
June.
A spokesman for President Mubarak, Suleiman Awad, told reporters
Wednesday that the Egyptian leader had written to President Bush
urging him to take advantage of the current climate to revive
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
(China Daily December 28, 2006)
