US 'pleased' at Arab support for Mideast talks

BRASILIA, March 3, 2010 (AFP) - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Wednesday welcomed Arab backing for indirect Palestinian-Israeli talks saying the United States was "very pleased."

Clinton said during a trip to Brazil that Washington hoped the talks would begin soon, and confirmed that US Middle East envoy George Mitchell would be involved.


Arab foreign ministers agreed Wednesday to back one last round of indirect Palestinian-Israeli talks despite skepticism over Israel's readiness to revive peace efforts, Arab League chief Amr Mussa said.

"We were very pleased by the endorsement that came out of Cairo today, that came out of the Arab follow-up group with respect to the proximity talks, we hope that they will begin soon," Clinton told reporters in Brasilia.

"Senator Mitchell will be deeply involved in those talks," she added.

"I think the United States, along with other countries, are very committed to try to bring about the two-state solution and we hope the proximity talks will be the beginning of that process."

A senior US official, asking to remain anonymous, said Mitchell would arrive in the region at the weekend, while a member of the Palestinian Authority said Abbas would him meet on Monday, March 8.

Mitchell proposed US-brokered indirect talks as a way of getting around the deadlock, after negotiations have been on ice since Israel launched a devastating attack on the Gaza Strip in December 2008.

Washington backs the creation of a Palestinian state more or less along the lines of the 1967 borders, lying next to a secure state of Israel.

Without saying when the indirect talks would start, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said: "We're not there yet, but we're getting close."

"The sooner it begins the better.

"We've been working hard in the region for several months to create the kind of political support that the parties will need if they make the decision to enter into discussions."

The Arab move, after months of US-led shuttle diplomacy, was swiftly welcomed by Israel but was slammed by the Islamist Hamas movement which controls Gaza as an "excuse" for Western-backed Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas to rejoin negotiations that would "only lead to failure."

Mussa said the Arab ministers had called for a four-month deadline for the indirect talks.

The Palestinians have said they will only return to the negotiating table if Israel first halts all settlement construction in the occupied West Bank.

But Israel has agreed only to a 10-month freeze that excludes public buildings and annexed Arab east Jerusalem, failing to satisfy the Palestinians.

There has been no let-up in Israeli settlement construction outside the limited 10-month moratorium Netanyahu announced in November.


by Lachlan Carmichael
(c) 2010 AFP