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. |