Clinton urges Israel, Palestinians to immediately resume peace talks
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Visiting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Saturday evening urged Israel and the Palestinians to immediately revive stalled peace talks.
The top U.S. diplomat, who arrived in Israel earlier Saturday, made the call while speaking at a joint press conference in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"I want to see both sides as soon as possible begin in negotiations," said Clinton, whose visit was her first official trip to Israel since the Netanyahu government took office in late March.
"Both U.S. President Barack Obama and I are committed to a comprehensive peace agreement," she pledged.
After arriving in Israel in the latest U.S. bid to renew peace talks in the region, Clinton said that Israel is making " unprecedented" concessions on West Bank settlement construction.
The Obama administration had previously demanded Israel halt all settlement building before negotiations could resume. But speaking at a joint press conference with Netanyahu, Clinton said there has never been such a precondition.
For his part, Netanyahu said at the press conference that while Israel was willing to enter into peace talks with the Palestinians without preconditions, the other side was not.
"We think we should sit around that negotiating table right away," he said.
At the press conference, Clinton also touched on negotiations between Iran and world powers over the Islamic Republic's nuclear ambitions, a significant cause of concern in Israel.
Iran should accept a deal that the powers have offered it on reprocessing enriched uranium, because Washington and its allies had limited patience, said the top U.S. diplomat.
"We are willing to work toward creative outcomes, like shipping out the low-enriched uranium to be reprocessed outside of Iran, but we are not going to wait forever," she said.
"Patience does have finally its limits and it is time for Iran to fulfill its obligations and responsibilities to the international community and accepting this deal would be a good beginning," added Clinton.
The United States and Israel have accused Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, but Iran has repeatedly denied the allegations, insisting that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.
The meeting between Clinton and Netanyahu came just hours after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejected a U.S. proposal for the renewal of peace talks, which have been suspended since the Israeli army's Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip in January.
Earlier Saturday, Abbas said his meeting in Abu Dhabi with Clinton failed to bridge gaps between the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and Israel to re-launch the peace talks.
"We came up with nothing new," Abbas said in a statement after the meeting in the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which was also attended by U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell.
The resumption of peace talks with Israel is not possible unless a complete freeze on Israeli settlements is put in place, he said.
Meanwhile, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said that Clinton proposed a formula for renewing the talks during her meeting with Abbas in Abu Dhabi, which was refused by the Palestinian leader.
According to Erekat, the proposal was for final-status talks to be re-launched on the basis of understandings over West Bank settlement construction reached between Mitchell and the Israeli government.
The offer failed to respond to the PNA's demands and conditions that no talks should take place before Israel stops Jewish settlement in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, said Erekat.
Following her meeting with Abbas, Clinton shuttled to Israel and subsequently met in Jerusalem with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
Lieberman told the secretary of state that the Palestinian demand for a complete halt to West Bank settlement building was aimed at scuppering the peace process, reported local daily Ha' aretz, adding that Lieberman said the Palestinians had never demanded this as a precondition to peace talks before.
The foreign minister also said that he had suggested Netanyahu not to enter into negotiations with the Palestinians as long as they were promoting a damning UN report on Israel's winter offensive against Hamas in Gaza, according to the newspaper.
Over the course of the summer, Obama had hoped for a fast track to renewed peace negotiations. In September, the U.S. president held a joint meeting with Netanyahu and Abbas in New York, hoping it would persuade them to return to negotiations.
However, Clinton reported to him last week that neither side had taken sufficient steps toward resuming the talks.
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