Israel is ready to negotiate the terms of Palestinian statehood, although it wants its security concerns addressed in the initial stages of indirect talks, the Israeli president said on Friday after meeting with the US Middle East envoy.
George Mitchell, US President Barack Obama’s special representative for Middle East peace, was in the region for the start of four months of indirect talks between the Israelis and Palestinians that aim to bridge vast differences between the sides on the contours of a future Palestinian state.
The Palestinians want the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem — territories Israel captured in the 1967 War — for their state, but have said they are willing to make some minor land exchanges.
PHOTO: EPA
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a reluctant latecomer to the idea of Palestinian statehood, has said he won’t give up east Jerusalem and has posed strict security conditions, including a continued Israeli presence in some areas of the West Bank.
Israeli President Shimon Peres said Israel was ready to negotiate.
“Israel seeks a historic peace agreement with the Palestinians that will result in the founding of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel,” Peres said after meeting with Mitchell.
Peres said resolving security concerns, such as rocket fire from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, are of the utmost importance to Israel. Rocket attacks from Gaza have almost ceased since Israel’s military offensive in the territory more than a year ago. A small number of rockets have been fired, although splinter groups and not Hamas itself are believed to be behind the attacks.
Mitchell also held talks on Friday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank. The Palestinian leader has agreed to participate in indirect peace talks with Israel, but has said he still requires the formal backing of the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s executive committee, which was expected to sign off on the negotiations when it met yesterday.
Mitchell arrived earlier last week and has already held two days of talks with Netanyahu. He was to meet again with Abbas on yesterday and today, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said.
He said the Palestinians want to give the negotiations a chance, but that success is mainly up to Israel.
“Now the Israeli government has a choice, either peace or settlements, and it can’t have both,” Erekat said.
The Palestinians refuse to enter into direct negotiations unless Israel halts all settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians claim as the capital of their future state Netanyahu has agreed to a temporary slowdown in the West Bank, but refuses to announce a construction freeze in east Jerusalem.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
RSS