Israel expects US mediated peace talks with the Palestinians to resume sometime next month, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said yesterday.
Ayalon’s pronouncement was the latest in a series of statements by Israeli officials expressing optimism at the restart of talks stalled since December 2008.
When asked in an interview on Israel Radio when the talks might resume, Ayalon said: “There is no final date yet, but I estimate that it is a matter of some two weeks.”
Ayalon was speaking from Washington where he held talks with US officials.
On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his right-wing Likud faction he hoped talks with Palestinians — which US President Barack Obama’s envoy George Mitchell has sought to convene — may resume as soon as next week.
Netanyahu said he would meet Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt next Monday to help facilitate the re-start of talks. Egypt has been a key player in the negotiations.
Mitchell has been pushing the sides to renew negotiations stalled since the Gaza war in December 2008, on an indirect basis or as so-called “proximity” talks.
Obama’s envoy held three days of talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in the region last week and is expected to return next week.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has insisted Israel freeze Jewish settlement building before the talks resume. He has rejected a temporary hiatus in construction ordered by Netanyahu last year as insufficient.
However, Palestinian sources said on Sunday that in exchange for holding indirect contacts with Israel, Mitchell had offered an unwritten commitment to assign blame publicly to any party that took action compromising the negotiations.
The formula appeared to envisage a situation in which Israel could quietly delay implementing housing projects in and around East Jerusalem — construction that Washington has said could jeopardize peacemaking — without declaring a freeze.
Jerusalem is a key issue in the conflict. Israel sees the city as its indivisible capital. It captured Arab East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it in a move that is not recognized internationally.
Palestinians want it as capital of a future state.
Meanwhile, Jerusalem’s mayor on Tuesday denied any formal or informal freeze in Jewish housing construction in the traditionally Arab eastern part of the city, in comments that may complicate the Obama administration’s attempts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Mayor Nir Barkat told reporters in Washington that reports of a de facto halt to building Jewish homes in east Jerusalem were wrong.
“There is no freeze,” the mayor said at a dinner organized by the pro-Israel group The Israel Project after talks with US lawmakers on Capitol Hill. “It’s not true.”
Barkat’s local government administers the long-term planning for Jerusalem’s growth, which he said had not changed.
He said construction will continue after a temporary slowdown in approvals caused by Israeli shock at US criticism of plans for new homes there announced last month during a visit by US Vice President Joe Biden.
He also said he could not accept Palestinian control of any portion of the city, likening such a move to putting an Arab “Trojan horse” into the middle of a predominantly Jewish community. Barkat’s tough stance is likely to cause anger throughout the Arab world.
In related news, the Palestinian economics minister says a new law banning Palestinians from working in Israeli settlements will not be immediately enforced.
The law, which also bans the sale of Israeli products made in the settlements, was signed by Abbas this week. Violators face up to five years in prison.
Some 25,000 Palestinians work in settlements because unemployment in the West Bank remains high.
Economics Minister Hassan Abu Libdeh said late on Tuesday that the workers in settlements won’t face immediate punishment.
He says they will be given a grace period to find other work. He did not say how much time they have.
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