US special Middle East envoy Martin Indyk has resigned to return to a Washington think tank in a move symbolizing the collapse of the latest US effort to forge an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.
Indyk’s departure on Friday, while not unexpected due to the failure of the talks, comes amid turmoil in the region and as relations between Israel and the Palestinians are at a low point, with little hope for a resumption in negotiations.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement that Indyk, a former US ambassador to Israel, would return to his position as vice president and director of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, but would continue to serve as special adviser on Mideast peace issues.
“Ambassador Indyk has invested decades of his extraordinary career to the mission of helping Israelis and Palestinians achieve a lasting peace. It’s the cause of Martin’s career, and I’m grateful for the wisdom and insight he’s brought to our collective efforts,” Kerry said. “The United States remains committed not just to the cause of peace, but to resuming the process when the parties find a path back to serious negotiations.”
Kerry appointed Indyk to the envoy post in July last year, while announcing a resumption in long-stalled peace talks with a nine-month deadline for a settlement. Negotiations broke down before the end-of-April target date, with recriminations from both sides.
With the peace process on hiatus, it is unclear whether Indyk will be replaced. His deputy, Frank Lowenstein, is to assume the envoy position on an interim basis.
Indyk’s resignation marks the second time US President Barack Obama has lost a Middle East peace envoy following a failed bid to bring the parties together.
Former US Senator George Mitchell stepped down from the post in May 2011 after two years of frustrating efforts to get negotiations going during Obama first term.
Mitchell’s attempt was marked by severe turbulence in US-Israel ties, mainly over Jewish settlements on disputed territory and tensions between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The latest effort, in which Kerry and Indyk had invested significant time and energy, collapsed in March when Israel and the Palestinians each backed out of pledges they had made when the peace talks resumed. Each side blamed the other for the breakdown.
The Palestinians accused Israel of reneging on a promised prisoner release and continuing to construct settlements in the West Bank and housing construction in east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians claim as their future capital. Israel accused the Palestinians of seeking greater UN recognition in violation of their agreement to negotiate.
The Palestinians then formed a unity government backed by the militant Hamas movement, which Israel refuses to deal with and now blames for the abduction of three Israeli teenagers two weeks ago.
Indyk, 62, had taken a leave of absence from his job as vice president and foreign policy director of Brookings when he was appointed envoy on July 29 last year.
At the time, he thanked Obama and Kerry for “entrusting me with the mission of helping you take this breakthrough and turn it into a full-fledged Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.”
“It is a daunting and humbling challenge, but one that I cannot desist from,” Indyk said then.
Prior to joining Brookings, Indyk had served as former US President Bill Clinton’s ambassador to Israel and was a key part of the 2000 Camp David peace talks.
He was also a special assistant to Clinton and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs at the US National Security Council from 1993 to 1995.
He also served as US assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs in the State Department from 1997 to 2000.
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other
CODIFYING DISCRIMINATION: Transgender people would be sentenced to three years in prison, while same-sex relations could land a person in jail for more than a decade Iraq’s parliament on Saturday passed a bill criminalizing same-sex relations, which would receive a sentence of up to 15 years in prison, in a move rights groups condemned as an “attack on human rights.” Transgender people would be sentenced to three years’ jail under the amendments to a 1988 anti-prostitution law, which were adopted during a session attended by 170 of 329 lawmakers. A previous draft had proposed capital punishment for same-sex relations, in what campaigners had called a “dangerous” escalation. The new amendments enable courts to sentence people engaging in same-sex relations to 10 to 15 years in prison, according to the