Iran; Hezbollah terms talks as media show
WASHINGTON: Israeli and Palestinian leaders arrived in Washington on Sunday two days before a conference in nearby Annapolis that they hope will launch talks to end 60 years of conflict and create a Palestinian state.
Tuesday's meeting in Maryland, where Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will be joined by many Arab ministers, aims to agree a resumption of negotiations on a Palestinian peace with Israel. The talks come seven years after a summit at Camp David hosted by President George W Bush's predecessor Bill Clinton collapsed.
In a boost for the organisers, diplomats said Syria, long at daggers drawn with Israel and Washington, had agreed to attend.
"We consider the Annapolis conference a launching pad for final status negotiations that will lead to the realisation of the Palestinian people's dream of establishing a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital," Abbas aide Nabil Abu Rdainah told Reuters after the Palestinian leader's arrival.
Olmert, who also landed in Washington on Sunday, told reporters on his plane before leaving that he hoped Annapolis would launch serious negotiations on "all the core issues that will result in a solution of two states for two peoples". In Jerusalem, Israeli police set up roadblocks to try to avert violence after a security alert. Israeli troops killed three Palestinian gunmen in raids in Gaza and the West Bank. Like Clinton in his final year in office, Bush hopes he can clinch a deal before he steps down in January 2009, a feat that could burnish his administration's reputation in the Middle East after years of controversy over the US occupation of Iraq.
However, all sides have played down the prospect of any breakthrough at Annapolis or afterwards. Abbas, Olmert and Bush all face severe limitations on implementing any agreement over borders and the fate of Palestinian refugees and Jerusalem. Abbas has lost control of the Gaza Strip to Iranian-linked Hamas Islamists, Olmert is unpopular with voters, not least due to corruption accusations, and faces opposition to concessions within his own coalition. Bush has barely a year left in power.
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have so far failed to agree on a joint document on how to proceed with negotiations. Abu Rdainah said they would meet again in Washington on Sunday and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told reporters on Olmert's plane she expected the two sides to agree on a document to "launch the (peace) process, not solve (the conflict)."
Both sides are expected to reaffirm commitments under the US-backed "road map" to peace, agreed in 2003. Israel has made any final deal conditional on Abbas preventing attacks on its citizens. Palestinians say Israel's occupation of the West Bank undermines their efforts and want Israel to halt settlement. The mere attendance at talks with Israel of Arab states like Saudi Arabia and Syria, which have had cold-to-hostile relations with the Jewish state, is likely to be hailed in Israel and Washington as a major achievement at Annapolis.
Livn said the Arab presence boosted chances for success, saying that without Arab support, there was not "a single Palestinian" who could reach a deal with Israel.
The prospect of better ties with Arab neighbours could also help Olmert sell any deal. Non-Arab Iran, which the United States has ostracised for developing nuclear technology, has not been invited and said on Sunday the conference would erode Palestinian rights. Hamas's armed wing vowed to keep fighting Israel and said any concessions would be tantamount to "treason".
Livni had said she believed Syria - which wants its claim to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on the agenda - would attend the meeting after the inclusion of a forum on "comprehensive peace in the Middle East", where the Golan could be mentioned.
Meanwhile, Iran said a Middle East conference organised by the United States would result in an erosion of Palestinian rights because Washington had shown in the past that it was not an objective mediator. Iran does not recognise Israel, backs Palestinian and Lebanese Islamic militant groups opposed to peace with the Jewish state and in October called for a boycott of the meeting.
"The organisers of this conference are Americans and past experience tells us that they cannot be objective and credible mediators and they are providing all out support for the Zionist regime," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said, making a reference to Israel. "The end result of all of these conferences leads to a further erosion of Palestinian rights," he told a news conference.
"Attending this conference shows a lack of political intelligence ... The names of those who give concessions to the Zionist occupiers by attending will not be remembered for goodness," the president told a gathering of Iran's Basij religious militia.
Iranian leaders have called for a referendum among all Palestinians-wherever they now live and whatever their religion or background-to decide on the fate of what is now Israel and the Palestinian areas-Reuters.
Meanwhile, Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group said a US-hosted Middle East peace conference this week was only a "media show" in support of Israel.
"He who looks at the preparations for the Annapolis conference finds that it has no gains for the Palestinians. It is a media-political show in favour of Israel," Hezbollah deputy chief Shiekh Naim Kassem told a rally in Beirut. He said the conference aimed at propping up some Palestinian leaders, a clear reference to President Mahmoud Abbas.