United States President George Bush said on Tuesday it was the ”right time” for peace between Israel and the Palestinians before launching his biggest initiative to negotiate an end to the conflict.
But he warned ”achieving this goal will not be easy”, according to remarks prepared for delivery at the opening later of the Annapolis peace conference.
”If it were easy, it would have happened a long time ago,” he said, seven years after the last talks collapsed under his predecessor, Bill Clinton.
The Bush administration, which is nearing the end of its eight-year term, has invited Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to Annapolis, Maryland, to relaunch negotiations aimed at establishing a Palestinian state living peacefully next to Israel.
After having been accused in Arab capitals of neglecting the peace process, Bush has managed to bring together top diplomats and officials from 16 Arab countries, most of which do not recognise Israel.
They are among representatives from about 50 countries and organisations called to throw their support behind what Washington calls the ”courageous efforts” of Abbas and Olmert.
Absent, though, is the radical Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip in June and split with the West Bank, which remains under the control of Abbas’s secular Fatah faction.
And thousands of Hamas supporters waving the group’s green flag demonstrated in Gaza City on Tuesday to reject the US-championed conference.
Despite 11th-hour talks, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have so far failed to clinch a document for the framework for the negotiations to be launched at Annapolis, both sides say.
”Our purpose here in Annapolis is not to conclude an agreement,” according to Bush’s prepared remarks.
”Rather, it is to launch negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians. For the rest of us, our job is to encourage the parties in this effort — and to give them the support they need to succeed,” he said.
”In light of recent developments, some have suggested that now is not the right time to pursue peace. I disagree,” Bush said in his remarks.
”I believe that now is precisely the right time to begin these negotiations — for a number of reasons.
”First, the time is right because Palestinians and Israelis have leaders who are determined to achieve peace,” he said.
”Second, the time is right because a battle is under way for the future of the Middle East — and we must not cede victory to the extremists,” he added.
”Third, the time is right because the world understands the urgency of supporting these negotiations.”
‘This time it’s different’
Analysts say the US administration will have to intervene at the highest levels to break the deadlock in the peace process and reach a final deal that the parties hope can be secured by the end of Bush’s term in January 2009.
But the White House said Bush will not impose solutions, rather he will facilitate negotiations.
Israelis and Palestinians early on Tuesday had yet to agree on a joint document on future peace negotiations, even after talking late into the night in Washington, sources from both sides said.
A senior Israeli official, who asked not to be identified, said ”the US has put forward a document that they want both sides to adopt”.
A diplomatic source said the two sides remained at odds over Israel’s demand that it be recognised as ”the state of the Jewish people” and other details, including what the text should be called.
But Israeli and Palestinian leaders were upbeat going into Tuesday’s conference.
”This time it’s different” because of the wider array of participants, Olmert said after talks on Monday with Bush.
Abbas was also optimistic, even though Hamas said Palestinians would not be bound by any decisions taken in Annapolis.
”We have a great deal of hope that this conference will produce permanent status negotiations, expanded negotiations, over all permanent status issues that would lead to a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian people,” he said Monday.
The so-called ”final status” issues that are areas of major disagreement between Israelis and Palestinians include the borders of a future Palestinian state, the future of Jerusalem and fate of Palestinian refugees.
Israel has also insisted that Abbas crack down on militants before any implementation of an agreement. — AFP
