Israel and the Palestinians will not be able to reach a peace agreement before Washington’s target date of the end of this year, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Monday.
”I don’t think it’s possible to clear an accord by the end of this year as both the US and the Israeli administrations are now busy with other matters and the very short time does not allow for striking such a deal,” Abbas said at the start of a two-day visit to Romania.
”I would like to say after the election processes are over, we will resume negotiations and contacts to clear all the oustanding files in discussion. We will try to close these files because up until now none have been closed,” he said, speaking through an interpreter.
The United States chooses a new president on Tuesday and Israel is to hold a parliamentary election on February 10.
Washington launched the latest peace drive at a conference in Annapolis, Maryland, last year with the hope of shepherding Israel and the Palestinians towards a peace deal before President George Bush leaves office in January.
But Israel’s failure to halt Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, divisions among Palestinians and political instability in Israel have made the prospects of meeting Washington’s target date for a deal ever more elusive.
On Sunday, the Quartet of Middle East peace mediators — the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia — plan to convene in Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, where negotiators will brief them on the peace talks.
Abbas, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni plan to attend.
Last week, a senior Bush administration official said the Israeli election meant a peace agreement was all but impossible this year. Israeli President Shimon Peres said several weeks ago that both sides were unlikely to conclude a deal in 2008. – Reuters