Special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, is resigning after two years in office, US officials said Friday, in a move likely to further complicate the stalemated peace process "The president will have a paper statement with regard to that later today," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
President Barack Obama tapped Mitchell as Middle East envoy in his new administration in 2009, hoping the seasoned diplomat could bring his renowned negotiating skills to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Mitchell, who managed against all odds to broker the historic Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland in 1998 ending decades of bitter conflict, has been indefatigable in his efforts in the Middle East.
But two years on and despite numerous trips and closed-door talks the Israel and the Palestinians are no closer to achieving a long coveted peace accord, which the United States hopes to see result in two nations living side by side. His efforts have been blocked as neither side will compromise on some of the thorniest issues at the heart of the conflict, such as Israel's continued settlement building in the occupied Palestinian lands. Washington's last bid to relaunch direct peace talks between the two sides in September 2010 failed less than a month later, when Israel refused to extend a moratorium on settlement building in the West Bank. Mitchell's resignation comes ahead of two key weeks in the peace process in Washington.
Obama will meet with Jordan's King Abdullah II at the White House on Tuesday and then give his long-awaited speech on uprisings in the Arab world on Thursday, an official said. The US president will then hold talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on May 20, with the Israeli leader set to address a joint session of the US Congress on May 24. Netanyahu said in mid-April that he would use his speech to spell out his plan for forging a lasting peace with the Palestinians. The prime minister has been waging a diplomatic offensive to counter Palestinian plans to seek a unilateral recognition of statehood at the United Nations.
Obama's speech will come amid region-wide reverberations from the killing by US special forces of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Carney said the speech, which will take place in the aftermath of the death of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, would be devoted to "the events in the Middle East and North Africa." "The president obviously has some important things to say about how he views the upheaval and how he has approached the US response to events in the region," Carney said.
"I am sure it will be fairly sweeping and comprehensive," Carney said. The president is believed likely to make the case that uprisings by the people of Middle Eastern nations against long-ruling autocrats reveal the ideology of al Qaeda to be redundant.
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