Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was to confer with Palestinian leaders yesterday about a possible resumption of peace negotiations with Israel after an almost three-year freeze, officials said.
They gave no details on what Abbas’ terms might be, should he announce a breakthrough after meeting in Jordan with US Secretary of State John Kerry, who has pursued six months of intensive and deliberately discreet back-and-forth diplomacy.
Gaps between the sides had “very significantly” narrowed, Kerry said on Wednesday.
Photo: EPA
His proposals to resume negotiations, which were not spelled out, won the endorsement of an Arab League committee, which said they “provide the ground and a suitable environment to start negotiations.”
Abbas was due to convene senior members of the umbrella Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and his Fatah party at 3pm in Ramallah, hub city of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and seat of his US-backed self-rule administration.
Abbas, whose peace strategy is routinely censured by his Palestinian Islamist rivals ruling the Gaza Strip, has in the past sought Arab League support to engage the Jewish state.
It was not clear whether Wednesday’s endorsement would give him enough political cover to resume direct talks.
“We are expecting to hear from the president the ideas presented by Kerry,” top PLO member Wasel Abu Yousef said. “There will be a discussion on these ideas, and everyone will say what he thinks about this. The conclusion will be by a general consensus.”
Negotiations, which have ebbed and flowed for two decades, last broke down in late 2010 over Israel’s West Bank settlements and other sticking points. Since then, Abbas at times has insisted that Israel renew and extend a halt on settlement construction for new talks to be held. Israel ruled that out.
Palestinians familiar with Abbas’ thinking speculated he might forgo the demand for a construction halt given a recent slowdown in housing starts issued by the Israeli government — though it may still be painful to roll back his previous demand.
If Abbas yields on the issue, it may be in exchange for a goodwill gesture from Israel, such as amnesty for veteran PLO fighters long held in its jails.
Israel gave no sign such prisoner releases were in the offing, but major Israeli broadcaster Army Radio said some West Bank roadblocks could be dismantled to ease Palestinian travel.
“These things have always been possible as part of the overall picture,” Israeli Minister for Regional Development Silvan Shalom told the station in response to the report. “If defense authorities assess that such a thing would not harm security, then of course we have the ability to take such steps.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he is ready to resume peacemaking immediately and “without preconditions.”
Israel has long insisted it would keep swathes of West Bank settlements under any eventual peace accord. Most world powers deem the settlements illegal and the EU announced a plan on Tuesday to bar financial assistance to Israeli organizations operating in the occupied territories.
An Israeli official said Netanyahu “attacked” the plan on Wednesday in conversations with European leaders where he argued that other “burning issues” like the Syrian civil war and disputed Iranian nuclear program should take precedence.
Israeli officials were lobbying intensively to try to persuade the EU to postpone, if not soften, the sanctions.
Israel granted initial approval for new homes in Modiin Ilit, a West Bank settlement near Jerusalem and part of the territorial blocs it wants to annex eventually.
Kerry, on his sixth Middle East mission, was upbeat.
“We have been able to narrow these gaps very significantly,” he told reporters on Wednesday. “And so we continue to get closer and I continue to remain hopeful that the sides can soon be able to come and sit at the same table.”
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not