Abbas, Olmert renew direct talks after gap
Middle East Desk Report

JERUSALEM—Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas held their first direct talks in seven weeks on Monday hoping to make a peace deal this year but giving no hint of progress.
The two “agreed to continue with the goal of reaching an historic agreement by the end of the year,” Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said after the two and a half hour meeting in Jerusalem.
Both sides accuse the other of failing to honour their commitments under the internationally drafted peace roadmap that calls on Israel to freeze settlement construction in the West Bank and on the Palestinians to halt attacks on the Jewish state. “It was agreed that those concerns will not interfere with the negotiations,” Regev said.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat also said that both sides were maintaining the end of the year target for a deal. There were “in-depth, serious discussions. They reviewed the negotiations on permanent status,” Erakat said. Abbas and Olmert also discussed a reciprocal ceasefire, lifting the Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip and implementing the peace roadmap, Erakat said.
Regev told reporters that “the Palestinians raised their concerns about the situation in Gaza. Olmert reiterated his commitment to avoid a humanitarian crisis.” The two leaders last met on February 19, but Abbas suspended the fortnightly talks at the beginning of March after an Israeli military operation in Gaza killed more than 130 people.
The slow-moving peace efforts were given new impetus when US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, secured an Israeli commitment to ease some restrictions on West Bank Palestinians during a visit to the region earlier this month. But the latest peace talks have made little progress since they were launched at an international conference in the United States in November, with each side accusing the other of failing to honour its commitments.
“We are negotiating seriously and we are striving to arrive at a solution for all the final status issues but it will not come at any price,” Abbas said on Sunday. Over the past two months, the government has given the green light for construction of more than 1,700 new homes in Jewish settlements in the West Bank, including annexed Arab east Jerusalem.
“We spent most of our time on this issue,” Erakat said, adding that the building of settlements was “undermining our efforts to revive the credibility of the peace process in the minds of our people.”
During Rice’s visit, Israel announced it was dismantling 50 of what UN officials say are 580 roadblocks in the West Bank, but Israel says the Palestinians have failed to do enough to halt attacks on the Jewish state.
“None of (the Israeli) obligations have been met,” Erakat said, referring to Israel’s commitment to freeze settlement activity and ease restrictions on movement in the occupied West Bank.
He admitted Palestinians still had to fulfil their commitments on security. “I’m not claiming that we have completed the task in this endeavour but we have begun,” Erakat said.
The two sides also remain deeply divided on the core issues of the decades-old conflict, including the status of Jerusalem, the fate of Palestinian refugees and Jewish settlements, and future borders.
Olmert said last month that he does not envisage the possibility of anything more than an outline agreement by 2009, despite the US target of a full deal by then. He also vowed that the expansion of settlements would continue.
Abbas in turn has accused Israel of splitting the territories into isolated cantons in order to prevent the creation of a viable Palestinian state. Erakat said the two leaders would meet again “as soon as possible” nonetheless.