Special report: Palestine-Israel
Relations
RAMALLAH, June 9 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian, Israeli and
American officials will hold a three-way meeting on June 16 to evaluate
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, a Palestinian official said on Monday.
"The Israeli-Palestinian negotiation process and its consequences will be
reviewed at the meeting which will take place on June 16," Palestinian
negotiator Saeb Erekat told Voice of Palestine radio.
"The meeting is to make the negotiations more serious, to settle them and
to let the U.S. administration know that the peace process can solve
everything," he added.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Assistant for Near Eastern
Affairs David Welch will attend the meeting, which is probably to be held in
Jerusalem.
Erekat and chief negotiator Ahmed Qurei will join the meeting as the
Palestinian side while Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livniand one of her aides
will represent Israel.
Ahead of the three-way meeting, Rice is to meet Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah. "The discussions with Rice will stress that Israel
must commit itself to the Road Map obligations, mainly the complete halting of
all settlement activities, including the natural growth of the settlement
blocs," Erekat said.
Erekat denied that Rice's visit is intended to put pressure on Abbas to
prevent him from holding talks with Islamic Hamas movement which ousted Abbas'
Fatah movement and took over the Gaza Strip by force one year ago.
The U.S. mediated the resumption of the peace process last November. However, Israel's settlement expansion
in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where the Palestinians recognize as
a part of their future statehood, blocked any progress on the peace talks.
Abbas: peace talks can't go on amid
settlements expansion
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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas
rejects Barack Obama's call on Wednesday for Jerusalem to be the undivided
capital of Israel, during a news conference in the West Bank city of
Ramallah June 4, 2008. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)
Photo
Gallery>>> |
RAMALLAH, June 4 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas said on Wednesday that peace negotiations with Israel can't go on
as Israel "swallows Jerusalem and expand settlements in the West Bank."
Abbas' statements were made when he chaired a meeting of the caretaker cabinet in Ramallah. He said he had expressed to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "our total rejection to expanding settlements in Jerusalem and around it." Full story
Rice: Israeli-Palestinian peace
agreement is possible
WASHINGTON, June 3 (Xinhua) -- U.S.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday expressed belief that there was
still a chance to reach a peace agreement between Israeli and the Palestinian on
the outlines of a Palestinian state.
"We still believe that we have a chance to reach an agreement on the basic contours of a peaceful Palestinian state. I know that this is ambitious," Rice told an annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israeli lobby group.
Full story
