Israel and the Palestinians have agreed to restart US-brokered direct peace talks, but politicians on both sides warned on Saturday that the process will be stillborn if the Jewish state fails to halt West Bank settlement building.
Amid widespread international support for the revived Middle East peace process, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said the opportunity "must not be wasted" and Germany called for rapid results. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to embrace US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's call on Friday for a Washington summit on September 2 to launch a targeted one year of negotiations.
Mideast talks should not be 'wasted': UN chief His office noted that, contrary to Palestinian demands that talks be contingent on a temporary freeze on settlement in the occupied West Bank, Clinton explicitly said the talks must be held without preconditions.
"Prime Minister Netanyahu has been calling for a year and a half now for the start of such talks, so it's a good thing that it's going to happen," his spokesman Mark Regev told AFP. "We welcome the opportunity to start now."
Israeli public radio said preparations for the Washington summit would go into high gear in the days ahead, with Israeli and US officials liaising face-to-face and through video-conferencing. Welfare Minister Isaac Herzog of the dovish Labour party, a member of the ruling coalition, said the summit would be a "moment of truth" for peace efforts, the Internet news website Ynet reported. But a leader of the left-wing opposition warned that the new initiative would peter out like past efforts unless Netanyahu and hard-liners on whom his coalition leans pay more than lip-service to Palestinian aspirations.
Public radio quoted Meretz party leader Haim Oron praising Washington for showing "initiative and assertiveness" in nudging the two sides back to the negotiating table after a 20-month hiatus, but he added a caveat. "Without (Israel) continuing a total freeze on settlement and a genuine readiness to withdraw to the international borders and an end to offering the Palestinians a caricature of a state it will be a waste of everybody's time," he said.
Palestine Liberation Organisation leaders voted shortly after midnight on Friday to accept the US invitation, but even as an aide to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas read out the decision, senior negotiator Saeb Erakat issued a warning. "Unless the Israeli government stops settlement (activity) and stops demolishing homes in (Israeli-occupied) east Jerusalem, we shall not be able to continue the talks," Erakat told reporters.
The Islamist Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip rejected the planned talks. "This invitation is a new attempt to fool the Palestinian people after the Annapolis experience, during which we were promised a Palestinian state within a year," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP.
He was referring to the formal restart of US-hosted peace negotiations between Abbas and then Israeli premier Ehud Olmert in November 2007, after a seven-year freeze. US President Barack Obama is to host Netanyahu and Abbas at the launch, as well as Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah II, leaders of the only two Arab states to have signed peace accords with Israel.
The Middle East diplomatic Quartet - the European Union, the United Nations, the United States and Russia - said its members reaffirmed strong support for direct negotiations "which can be completed within one year." It called on Israelis and Palestinians "to resolve all final-status issues and fulfil the aspirations of both parties" and lead to a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel.
"We should all be aware that this is an opportunity that must not be wasted," UN chief Ban said in a statement. He said the opportunity "must be seized so that the hope of a better future for the people of the region to live in peace, security and freedom can be fully realised."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for quick results. "Possible solutions on unresolved questions" have already been floated in previous talks, and now the task is to "prove the capacity for necessary compromise," Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said.