Obama, Palestinian leader meet as deadline nears (AP) A deadline fast approaching, President Barack Obama is seeking to ease the logjam in elusive Mideast peace talks and keep Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas from walking away, despite few signs that either Palestinians or Israelis are prepared to budge on key sticking points. Obama’s White House meeting with the longtime Palestinian leader Monday marks a renewed foray into a diplomatic minefield that the president has mostly left up to his secretary of state, John Kerry. While Kerry remains deeply involved, his attention is split among multiple undertakings in the Middle East not to mention a crisis in Ukraine that’s consumed Obama’s national security team. With just weeks left before a U.S.-imposed April deadline for completing a framework for peace talks expires, Obama is inserting himself in the process with fresh vigor, hoping that presidential pressure might salvage the talks despite a growing sense of pessimism on both sides. Just two weeks ago, Obama held a similar meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in which he urged Israel to make the “tough decisions” needed to move forward. Absent signs of progress, attention has turned to whether the parties might agree to extend the deadline if a formal framework can’t [...] newsinfl/obama-palestinian-leader-meet-as-deadline-nears/
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 12:30:57 +0000
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