US limits hopes for Mideast peace moot

WASHINGTON—US President George W. Bush made more calls to Middle East leaders as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pinned the success of next week’s Annapolis conference on simply opening negotiations for a Palestinian state, even without a work plan.
“The success of this meeting is really in the launch of negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians for the establishment of a Palestinian state and therefore a two-state solution,” Rice said about the conference planned for Annapolis, Maryland, near Washington. “It was not absolutely clear that Annapolis would launch negotiations until a couple of weeks ago,” Rice said.
Rice said previous efforts snagged on a condition that the first phase of the international “road map” had to be completely implemented before talks could begin on the third phase: the push for an independent Palestinian state. The first phase of the roadmap, which stalled soon after Bush launched it in 2003, includes a halt to “terror and violence” and a freeze on Israeli settlement activity. “Israel has changed its traditional view,” Rice said.
Nonetheless she pointed out that all of the obligations of the road map drafted by the “Diplomatic Quartet” — United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union — still had to be met before a Palestinian state is established. Rice said a joint document that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas had planned to agree on before the conference would not be the envisaged declaration of principles that she had called a work plan. The two leaders decided “they should just go for the negotiations, not try to get some interim document, not try to get some kind of statement of principles,” she said. It was feared such a statement might “prejudice somebody’s negotiating position,” she added.
The western-backed Palestinian leadership and other Arab allies expected the conference to tackle the thorniest issues: the status of east Jerusalem, occupied by Israel in 1967; the boundaries of a future Palestinian state; the status of Palestinian refugees; and Jewish settlements. The Israeli leadership instead wanted a vaguer document, stating a list of principles on which to base negotiations. During a visit Tuesday to Egypt — which is invited to the conference as a key Arab mediator — Olmert said he hoped to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians next year.
Rice reinforced Olmert’s remarks, saying: “The parties have said that they are going to make efforts to conclude it in (Bush’s) term. It’s not a secret that it means about a year. That’s what we’ll try and do,” Rice said.
Bush’s second and last presidential term ends in January 2009. Bush meanwhile made more calls to Israeli and Arab leaders ahead of the Annapolis conference he will host in a bid to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Preparing for the conference from his retreat at Camp David, Maryland, Bush spoke by phone with Olmert, Abbas and President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, which is sending Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit to Annapolis.
After Annapolis, the Israelis and Palestinians will set up working groups to pursue negotiations, Rice said. The top US diplomat said she, Bush and the international community were all ready to help them make progress, and appealed for the largest Arab support possible.
She said it was important for the Israelis to know that their broader conflict with the Arabs will be finally over following a settlement with the Palestinians.
Although the Annapolis conference is aimed mainly at relaunching Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, it also will discuss efforts for a comprehensive Middle East settlement.
For example, Rice said that if Syria, which wants the return of the Golan Heights, wants to raise its issues with Israel, “nobody will rule it out of order.” Tony Blair, the former British prime minister who is now the Quartet’s peace envoy, discussed the conference plans with Saudi King Abdullah at his ranch outside the Saudi capital Riyadh, the state SPA news agency reported.—Agencies