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Obama demands Netanyahu's peace answers by Saturday
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will convene his senior ministers on Friday to discuss the demands made by US President Barack Obama and his overall trip to Washington -- a trip that, because of negative atmospherics and amid a paucity of hard information, has been widely characterized as among the most difficult in recent memory.Officials in the Prime Minister's Office continued to throw a blackout on the Netanyahu-Obama meeting, as well as give only very sketchy information about the commitments that the US is demanding of Israel as a precursor to starting the proximity talks with the Palestinians. The US, according to officials, wants these commitments by Saturday so it can take them to the Arab League meeting in Libya and receive that organization's backing for starting proximity talks. According to a Palestinian Authority official in Ramallah, the US administration on Thursday informed the PA that the Netanyahu meetings in Washington did not produce any agreement on the issue of construction in east Jerusalem. The official said that PA President Mahmoud Abbas met in Amman with David Hale, US deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, who briefed him on the outcome of Netanyahu's talks with Obama. "The American envoy said that the two sides failed to reach agreement on settlement construction in Jerusalem," the PA official said. Hale also told Abbas that the US administration would continue its discussions with the Israeli government in the next few days and weeks, in an attempt to solve the crisis that has erupted between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government. Prior to leaving Washington late on Wednesday night, Netanyahu tried to put a positive spin on the meetings, saying that the two sides had made progress in finding a "middle path" between the "traditional policy of all Israeli governments [regarding building in east Jerusalem], and our will to also find a way to renew the peace process." US officials indicated on Thursday that Israel had bridged some of the gaps between the two countries during their marathon consultations, even though no final resolution was presented after Obama's and Netanyahu's staffs toiled late into the night on Wednesday for a second straight day. "I think we're making progress on important issues," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters on Thursday afternoon, but he declined to go into specifics. Posted by: Fred 2010-03-26 |
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