Israel to have peace if ends occupation: Abbas
Foreign Desk Report

ANKARA—Israel will live in peace if it ends its occupation of Arab lands, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said Tuesday ahead of a US-sponsored peace conference to revive the Middle East peace process.
“If there is peace between Israel and the Palestinians and the occupation of Arab lands ends, Israel will also live in a sea of peace, security and stability in the Middle East,” Abbas told a joint press conference here with Israeli President Shimon Peres and his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul. “If this happens, there will no longer be wars or enmity and all the peoples in the region will live in security and stability,” the Palestinian leader said, speaking through a translator.
The United States is due to host an international conference in Annapolis, Maryland, in a bid to jumpstart Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations that broke down seven years ago with the second Palestinian uprising. The conference could be held later this month, although no specific date or list of participants has been set.
Both sides have hailed the conference as an opportunity not to be missed, but negotiations to draw up a joint document for the meeting have so far failed to yield a result.
Palestinians are calling for a document that addresses core issues, while Israel prefers a looser declaration based on the 2003 roadmap plan that calls for the removal of some Jewish settlements in the West bank in exchange for Palestinians taking over responsibility for security. Peres hailed the Palestinian leader as a “friend” and a “man of peace.”
“Having Abbas as the leader of the Palestinian people is a very important chance for peace,” the Israeli President said. Peres and Abbas spoke just minutes before they signed, along with Gul, an agreement to set up joint industrial zones in the West Bank. “This agreement is a win-win situation,” Peres said. “This meeting supports Annapolis and it will contribute to the peace process.” The agreement paves the way for the establishment of industrial zones first in Tarqumia and then in Jenin under the leadership of Turkey’s Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges.
Israel will provide security for the planned zones and allow the produced goods to be shipped out by sea and air routes. “This project will provide employment for thousands of Palestinians, revive business in the Palestinian territories and allow for goods produced there to enter markets in the United States, the European Union, and the Gulf,” Gul said.
The initial project, launched by Gul himself in 2005 when he was foreign minister, initially called for the reconstruction of the Erez industrial zone on the northern tip of the Gaza Strip, but that project was frozen after Hamas gained control of the region.
The project is part of Ankara’s efforts to facilitate peace in the Middle East, using its good ties with the Jewish State and the Palestinians. Peres will thus become the the first Israeli head of state to speak before the legislature of a Muslim-populated country, when he addresses the Turkish parliament later Tuesday.
Abbas will also address legislators. Afterwards, the Israeli president will head to Istanbul where he will meet members of the Jewish community before returning home. Abbas will stay in Ankara for talks with Gul and other Turkish officials before leaving the Turkish capital later Tuesday.
Israel sought on Tuesday to play down the chances of a major breakthrough at a US-sponsored Middle East peace conference that could be held later this month. A senior Israeli official said the meeting, due to take place in Annapolis, Maryland, may only last a single day and not involve any real negotiations on ending the decades-old Israeli-palestinian conflict. And Defence Minister Ehud Barak also dampened the prospect of progress at the meeting, which is being hosted by the United States although no date or list of participants has been set.
“No arrangements concluded at Annapolis will be implemented until the first stage of the roadmap has taken effect,” Barak told Israeli public radio.
He was referring to an internationally-drafted peace plan which calls initially for complete halt to violence and an end to Jewish settlement building in the occupied West Bank. But the roadmap has failed to make any headway since its launch in 2003.
“What will be discussed at the meeting and the time of the meeting still has to be set by the United States, but it could happen on November 27 and finish the same day,” the Israeli official told reporters on condition of anonymity. “It’s not a conference, as Israel has explained many times, but a meeting where representatives will read declarations without entering into negotiations,” the official added.
Barak also suggested that there could be no progress while the Islamists of Hamas control the Gaza Strip and until the Palestinians recognise the “Jewish character” of Israel.
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have so far failed to draw up a joint document for the Annapolis meeting despite holding a further round of talks on Monday.
The head of the Palestinian team, Ahmed Qorei, spoke of a “real crisis” in the negotiations, according to the Haaretz newspaper.
Israel and the Palestinians have been struggling for weeks to develop a joint document to present at the meeting which they hope will serve as the launch-pad for a renewed peace process after previous talks broke down in 2000.
But the two sides remain deeply divided on the document, with Palestinians demanding that it address core issues such as the fate of Jerusalem, final borders, settlements and refugees, and Israel preferring a looser declaration of principles.