Kerry Sees Progress in Effort to Revive Mideast Talks By JODI RUDOREN and MICHAEL R. GORDON Published: June 30, 2013 TEL AVIV — After four days of the most intense Middle East peace push in years, Secretary of State John Kerry left Israel on Sunday without securing a public commitment that the two sides would return to the negotiating table, though he insisted that “real progress” had been made and said that a resumption of talks “could be within reach.” In what has become a familiar refrain, Mr. Kerry promised to return to the region soon. “We started out with very wide gaps and we have narrowed those considerably,” Mr. Kerry told reporters before departing for a meeting of foreign ministers in Asia, having canceled a visit to the United Arab Emirates to continue to press his case here. “I am very hopeful that we are close to an approach that will work, but it will take a little bit more time to work through some of the details.” While American and Israeli officials involved in the talks, and to a lesser extent their Palestinian counterparts, said that this trip, Mr. Kerry’s fifth in three months, had yielded real movement, skepticism was high among veteran analysts of the peace process. If days of shuttle diplomacy and marathon meetings, including a six-hour session with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that ended at 3:30 a.m. Sunday, did not yield a breakthrough, they said, what more might Mr. Kerry be able to bring to bear? And even if he succeeds in getting Mr. Netanyahu and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority to sit down together, the hard work of involving core issues remains — along with the deep distrust and complicated internal politics on both sides. “This is the fifth bid by the leading diplomat of the world’s superpower to persuade these two people to go into a room together, and even that he cannot achieve,” said David Horovitz, an Israeli journalist who has covered the Middle East for 30 years and now runs The Times of Israel news site. “At some point it becomes embarrassing and humiliating for the United States.” Diana Buttu, an Arab-Israeli lawyer who worked with the Palestinians in previous rounds of negotiations, said she was perplexed that Mr. Kerry sounded so upbeat, because it seemed clear that the maximum Mr. Netanyahu would offer was far short of the minimum Mr. Abbas would accept. “I think we all know he won’t be able to bridge that gap very easily, and even if he does, he won’t be able to take it any further,” Ms. Buttu said. “I have no doubt he’s trying his hardest,” she added. “What’s at issue is, I know what broke down the negotiations in the past, and unless he addresses those issues, he won’t be able to move forward.” Those involved refused to disclose details of the discussions, but the sticking points seem to be the same ones that have produced years of stalemate. Mr. Abbas wants a freeze on the building of settlements in the West Bank, the release of long-serving Palestinian prisoners and a commitment that negotiations toward a two-state solution will begin with the pre-1967 borders. Mr. Netanyahu, who has rejected any preconditions for entering talks, has not started any new settlement projects during the months of Mr. Kerry’s efforts, but has allowed developments that have already been approved to move forward — most recently, with a city hearing set for Monday regarding 930 apartments in Har Homa, an area at Jerusalem’s southern edge that was seized in the 1967 war. One senior Israeli official close to the talks, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the diplomacy, said that Mr. Netanyahu had taken “serious steps” and sent Mr. Kerry with a “good package” to his final meeting with Mr. Abbas on Sunday. Another official, also speaking anonymously, said that the discussions had changed over the weekend “from ideas to something very concrete” but that it remained unclear whether the Palestinians’ hesitation to commit was “a matter of wording or substance.” The presence of a lawyer and military adviser at the overnight meeting suggested that specific proposals were indeed being drafted. Saeb Erekat, the Palestinians’ chief negotiator, described Sunday’s two-hour talk with Mr. Kerry as “positive and profound,” but said “there is still a gap.” Ghassan Khatib, a former spokesman for the Palestinian government, said “progress” was “the diplomatic way of saying that it’s not working now but it’s not the end of the line, because it’s dangerous to say that it’s over.” Mr. Kerry, who has made the Israeli-Palestinian conflict his central mission since taking office, was more optimistic on Sunday than on his previous four visits. He left several staff members, including his top Middle East aide, behind to keep pushing the process, and was clearly trying to create momentum with his comments. “I’m feeling very hopeful,” he said, “that we have a concept that is being now fleshed out and that people have a sense of how this might be able to go forward.” After three long meetings each with Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Abbas, he said both had asked him to come back, adding, “I wouldn’t do it if there wasn’t some hope and possibility in that.” Ehud Yaari, an Israel-based fellow of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a veteran television analyst here, said that the current Israeli proposal involved a series of steps to be phased in as the negotiations progressed, with groups of prisoners released and settlement activity frozen depending on location. “There are going to be talks,” Mr. Yaari predicted. “What we see is last-minute haggling about how to pose before the cameras.” Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Abbas held 16 hours of direct talks over three weeks in 2010, and their envoys continued to meet through January 2012. As difficult as it has been to get them back to the table, even Mr. Kerry acknowledged that the real challenges would come in the negotiations themselves. Several analysts said they expected any new talks to be short-lived. “My impression is that such efforts have been invested to resume the talks and not so much on what comes next,” said Shlomo Brom, who directs a program on Israeli-Palestinian relations at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. “When it comes to actually having to draw a border, on issues of borders and security, you will see that the gaps are huge between Netanyahu and Abbas.” Dore Gold, a veteran Israeli negotiator and a former ambassador who is now president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, noted that September would be the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Oslo peace accords. “We’ve gone through seven Israeli prime ministers; we’ve gone through three American presidents, two Palestinian leaders — no one reached a permanent-status agreement,” Mr. Gold said. “Which leaves the question of why a negotiation would work now, without retooling it based on the lessons of the past.” Jodi Rudoren reported from Jerusalem, and Michael R. Gordon from Tel Aviv. Isabel Kershner contributed reporting from Jerusalem.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Jul 2013 03:13:52 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015