Indirect Palestinian-Israeli talks to resume next week

WASHINGTON, April 30, 2010 AFP - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday that she expected indirect Israeli-Palestinian peace talks to resume next week.

“The resumption of talks is absolutely essential... We will be starting with proximity (indirect) talks next week,” the chief US diplomat told reporters in Washington.

Her spokesman Philip Crowley explained afterward that the talks which were aborted as soon as they were announced last month will start provided that Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas receives Arab support.

“We look forward to the meeting of the Arab follow-up committee in Cairo tomorrow night to support the commitment by president Abbas to (move) forward with these talks,” Clinton said.

“Ultimately we want to see the parties in direct negotiations and working out all the difficult issues that they must” tackle, she added.

Clinton, who spoke to reporters while receiving Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed al-Sabah, said Middle East envoy George Mitchell will be returning to the region soon.During a speech Thursday to the pro-Israel American Jewish Committee, Clinton urged Arab states to do more to back Israeli-Palestinian peace moves while warning Syria against arming Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

But Clinton said she also expected Israel to halt settlements on occupied land, meet the humanitarian needs of Gazans, and help the Abbas-led Palestinian Authority build institutions needed for statehood.

President Barack Obama’s administration is trying hard to relaunch indirect Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that were scrapped last month when the right-wing Israeli government announced new settlements in east Jerusalem.

Clinton also urged the US-backed Palestinian Authority which controls only the West Bank and not the Hamas-run Gaza Strip to continue its work to improve security and stop anti-Israeli militancy in the West Bank.