Israelis and Palestinians resume negotiations for the first time in nearly seven years, trying to reconcile conflicting claims and clashing dreams in a bid to end six decades of conflict.
Late on Tuesday, Israel announced that the talks would be moved from Jerusalem's ornate King David Hotel to an undisclosed location. No reason for the change was given but Israeli media reports said it was an attempt to lower the profile of the meeting, since it would deal mostly with procedural matters.
Israel's plan to expand an east Jerusalem neighborhood and an Israeli military operation that killed six militants in the Gaza Strip had cast a pall over the talks even before they were to begin yesterday. Palestinians accused Israel of sabotaging the negotiations, a charge Israel rejected.
PHOTO: AFP
The Gaza operation was not expected to disrupt the talks since Israeli troops had withdrawn to a buffer zone along the territory's border with Israel by daybreak yesterday.
But on the east Jerusalem settlement, Palestinian officials said that they wouldn't agree to discuss anything else until Israel agrees to halt all building in the territories the Palestinians want to include in a state.
The last round of talks crumbled in early 2001, shortly after the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising. Since then, more than 4,400 Palestinians and 1,100 Israelis have been killed.
Israel and the Palestinians formally relaunched peacemaking at an international conference last month in the US. They set an ambitious target of December next year -- near the end of US President George W. Bush's tenure -- to conclude a peace deal.
Negotiators are expected to quickly move to issues that have buried past talks -- West Bank settlements, borders between Israel and a future Palestinian state, sovereignty over disputed Jerusalem and a solution for the Palestinian refugees.
While the issues haven't changed, conditions may be better now for fruitful talks.
Opinion polls show that majorities on both sides want a peace settlement. Negotiators say a failure could strengthen rising Islamic extremism in the region, and US and Arab backing for peace moves -- absent for years -- is providing an important push.
However, both leaders face domestic troubles, making it tough for them to offer concessions.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in