Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to personally lead peace talks that start next week and hopes to meet Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas every two weeks, a senior official said on Friday.
The official confirmed media reports, saying Netanyahu considered it vital that negotiations be conducted between leaders and in the greatest possible secrecy.
Speaking at a meeting of top ministers on Thursday night, the prime minister said “serious negotiations in the Middle East [require] direct, discreet and continuous talks between the leaders on key issues,” the English-language Jerusalem Post reported.
He told ministers he hoped to meet Abbas every two weeks to discuss key issues to then be fleshed out by negotiating teams.
Media reports said the Israeli side would be led by Netanyahu’s pointman on Palestinian affairs Yitzhak Molcho, a long-standing friend who served as an adviser during his first term as prime minister.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, a firebrand ultra-nationalist, will not be part of the Israeli delegation, press reports said.
US officials were told of Netanyahu’s proposals ahead of a ceremony in Washington next Thursday to mark the relaunch of talks.
Thursday’s summit will be the first direct negotiations between the two sides since the Palestinians broke off talks in December 2008 after Israel launched an offensive against the Gaza Strip.
Late on Thursday, veteran US Middle East envoy Dennis Ross arrived in Israel for a final round of shuttle diplomacy ahead of the Washington meeting, army radio said. He will be seeking to narrow the differences between the two sides, in particular over the future of a partial Israeli moratorium on settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, which is due to end on Sept. 26.
The Israeli government faces strong pressure at home not to renew the freeze, while Abbas has warned that “if Israel resumes settlement activities, including in east Jerusalem, we cannot continue with negotiations.”
The international community considers settlements in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, to be illegal, but these are now home to about 500,000 Israelis.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, meanwhile is to meet French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy next week on his way to the Washington summit, Egypt’s flagship Al-Ahram newspaper said.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Friday that the EU should be represented at the talks by its foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.
“It would be a shame if there was no European representation,” he said in Paris.
Kouchner referred to the fact that EU is the major contributor of Palestinian aid, but plays second fiddle diplomatically to the US.
The EU is part of the Middle East quartet, along with Russia, the UN and the US
Jordan’s King Abdullah II is also due to attend the inaugural session of the talks in Washington.
Egypt and Jordan are the only Arab states to have signed peace treaties with Israel.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person