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US envoy in Egypt to save Middle East talks
Sunday, October 03, 2010 07:06:12 PM,
DPA
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Cairo:
The US' special envoy to the Middle East sounded a cautious
discord Sunday after he met with Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak,
saying that he has faced "difficulties and obstacles" in his bid
to sustain peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians.
"We knew when we began these efforts that there would be a lot of
difficulties and obstacles, and there have been," George Mitchell
told journalists just after his meeting with the Egyptian
president in Cairo.
"Despite their differences, both the government of Israel and the
Palestinian Authority asked us to continue these discussions in
efforts to establish the conditions under which they could
continue direct negotiations," said Mitchell.
Contrary to what the Palestinian leadership said Saturday,
Mitchell told reporters that neither the Israelis nor the
Palestinians wanted to stop the negotiations and that the US would
not give up on efforts to keep the two sides in direct talks.
Mitchell left Ramallah Friday. The following day the Palestinian
Liberation Organisation (PLO) had said they would support
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ending the direct negotiations
with Israel -- less than a month after the peace talks were
relaunched in Washington.
The PLO said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bore full
responsibility for the collapse of the talks, given his refusal to
extend the temporary freeze on settlement construction in the face
of both US and international pressure to do so and threats by
Abbas that he would pull out of the talks if expansion continued.
Mitchell is scrambling to meet with Middle East leaders in the
hope that they can persuade the Palestinian leadership to continue
talks with Israel despite its refusal to extend a 10-month
moratorium on settlement expansion in the West Bank that ended a
week ago.
Mitchell met with leaders in Qatar Saturday before flying to
Cairo, where he initially held talks with Egyptian Foreign
Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit and intelligence chief Omar Suleiman.
Mitchell then met with Arab League leader Amr Moussa Saturday
night, days before the league's member states are expected to show
support for Abbas' withdrawal from the direct talks during a
meeting in Cairo.
Mitchell is scheduled to be in Amman later in the day Sunday to
meet with King Abdullah.
The US envoy is on his last leg of a regional tour after failing
to get the Palestinians to agree to continue negotiations with
Israel.
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