Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was met Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni yesterday in the highest-level talks between the two sides since the shock January election win of the Islamist militant movement Hamas.
The Middle East peace process has been stalled for more than a year, and the election triumph by Hamas dealt a further blow to peace efforts, with the Israeli government freezing all contacts with the Hamas-led government.
Violence flared in the Palestinian territories at the weekend, with four Palestinians including a local Islamic Jihad military commander killed in an Israeli air raid on the Gaza Strip on Saturday.
A Palestinian woman was also shot dead during a dawn raid by Israeli troops in the Balata Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank yesterday.
Abbas said on Saturday that his talks with Livni, on the sidelines of a World Economic Forum conference in Sharm El-Sheikh, would "certainly pave the way for a meeting with [Israeli] Prime Minister Ehud Olmert upon his return from Washington."
Olmert, who is due to meet US President George W. Bush tomorrow, has vowed to redraw the borders of Israel by leaving parts of the occupied West Bank but retaining the largest Jewish settlements, with or without agreement from the Palestinians.
Abbas said he would reiterate to Livni -- Olmert's official number two -- that the "first and sole reference [in the peace process] is the roadmap," the peace plan drawn up by the US, Russia, the EU and the UN.
"Our arms are stretched to [achieve] peace," he added.
Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who was also due to meet Abbas yesterday, said the Abbas-Olmert meeting would be an opportunity to assess the chances of relaunching the stalled peace process.
"We should revive the negotiations, but we must first coordinate our positions with the Americans," Peres told Israeli radio.
Abbas, a moderate from the Fatah faction, is committed to a negotiated settlement to the Middle East conflict despite the rise to power of Hamas which refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist nor renounce violence.
As president of the Palestinian Authority and chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Abbas is responsible for peace negotiations and not the Hamas-led government.
Meanwhile the Israeli Cabinet yesterday authorized the release of 50 million shekels (US$11.18 million) in frozen Palestinian taxes in a bid to ease a humanitarian crisis in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, officials said.
Political sources said the money, a fraction of some US$220 million in tax and customs levies that Israel has withheld from the Palestinians since they voted Islamic militant group Hamas into power, would go towards buying medical supplies for hospitals.
REBUILDING: A researcher said that it might seem counterintuitive to start talking about reconstruction amid the war with Russia, but it is ‘actually an urgent priority’ Italy is hosting the fourth annual conference on rebuilding Ukraine even as Russia escalates its war, inviting political and business leaders to Rome to promote public-private partnerships on defense, mining, energy and other projects as uncertainty grows about the US’ commitment to Kyiv’s defense. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy were opening the meeting yesterday, which gets under way as Russia accelerated its aerial and ground attacks against Ukraine with another night of pounding missile and drone attacks on Kyiv. Italian organizers said that 100 official delegations were attending, as were 40 international organizations and development banks. There are
TARIFF ACTION: The US embassy said that the ‘political persecution’ against former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro disrespects the democratic traditions of the nation The US and Brazil on Wednesday escalated their row over US President Donald Trump’s support for former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, with Washington slapping a 50 percent tariff on one of its main steel suppliers. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva threatened to reciprocate. Trump has criticized the prosecution of Bolsonaro, who is on trial for allegedly plotting to cling on to power after losing 2022 elections to Lula. Brasilia on Wednesday summoned Washington’s top envoy to the country to explain an embassy statement describing Bolsonaro as a victim of “political persecution” — echoing Trump’s description of the treatment of Bolsonaro as
The military is to begin conscripting civilians next year, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said yesterday, citing rising tensions with Thailand as the reason for activating a long-dormant mandatory enlistment law. The Cambodian parliament in 2006 approved a law that would require all Cambodians aged 18 to 30 to serve in the military for 18 months, although it has never been enforced. Relations with Thailand have been tense since May, when a long-standing territorial dispute boiled over into cross-border clashes, killing one Cambodian soldier. “This episode of confrontation is a lesson for us and is an opportunity for us to review, assess and
CEREMONY EXPECTED: Abdullah Ocalan said he believes in the power of politics and social peace, not weapons, and called on the group to put that into practice The jailed leader of a Kurdish militant group yesterday renewed a call for his fighters to lay down their arms, days before a symbolic disarmament ceremony is expected to take place as a first concrete step in a peace process with the Turkish state. In a seven-minute video message broadcast on pro-Kurdish Medya Haber’s YouTube channel, Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), said that the peace initiative had reached a stage that required practical steps. “It should be considered natural for you to publicly ensure the disarmament of the relevant groups in a way that addresses the expectations
RSS