Israeli-Palestinian talks hosted by United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ended on Monday with a vague promise to meet again and little sign of progress on reviving long-stalled peace moves.
The talks, attended by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, were overshadowed by a Palestinian unity deal that calmed factional fighting but cast a new cloud over prospects for peace with Israel.
”All three of us affirmed our commitment to a two-state solution, agreed that a Palestinian state cannot be born of violence and terror,” Rice said after the more than two-hour-long meeting in a Jerusalem hotel.
She said the two leaders ”reiterated their acceptance of previous agreements and obligations”, including a US-backed peace road map charting reciprocal steps towards a Palestinian state, and that Olmert and Abbas would meet again soon.
Rice did not give a date, but said she expected to return to the region shortly.
Olmert and Abbas, she said, discussed the deal the Palestinian president signed with Islamist movement Hamas to establish a unity government, an accord that fell short of international demands on policy towards Israel.
Olmert said on Sunday that he and US President George Bush agreed to boycott the government, which has yet to be formed, unless it renounced violence, recognised Israel and accepted existing interim peace accords.
Rice did not address the issue in her brief remarks after the meeting, but noted it was the position of Middle East mediators known as the ”Quartet” that the terms must be met.
The group comprises the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations.
The unity government deal, forged in Mecca, Saudi Arabia earlier this month, helped curtail Palestinian factional warfare that killed 90 people in recent weeks.
A boycott by the US could prevent a resumption of direct aid from Western donors to the Palestinian Authority that was cut off after Hamas defeated Abbas’s Fatah movement in an election a year ago.
Bogged down in Iraq, the US has been seeking progress on the stalled Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic track.
It has said it would like both sides to start talking about the tough issues, such as the contours of a new Palestinian state, refugees and the status of Jerusalem. — Reuters