Skepticalbut Polite Egypt Says: Sure, Condi... Have your "Peace" Conference..
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Skepticalbut Polite Egypt Says: Sure, Condi... Have your "Peace" Conference..
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
AP via Yahoo - Oct 16, 2007
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071016/ap_on_re_mi_ea/mideast_rice
Rice wins Egypt's support for conference
By MATTHEW LEE
Associated Press Writer
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice won public support Tuesday for a
Mideast peace conference from a skeptical Egypt, boosting her bid to
secure critical Arab backing for pushing Israel and the Palestinians to
resume formal negotiations to end their conflict.
Pressing ahead with an intense four-day shuttle diplomacy mission, Rice
appeared to have convinced the Egyptians of U.S. seriousness in
organizing the conference to be held in Annapolis, Md. in November or
December.
After her talks here with President Hosni Mubarak and other top
officials, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said at a news
conference with Rice that she had given them "a lot of trust and
confidence" about American intentions for the meeting.
"She has helped us to understand the American objective," Aboul Gheit
told reporters. "We feel encouraged regarding what we heard from
Secretary Rice and promised her that we would help and we would help
the parties as well in order to achieve the objective."
Gheit said Rice had assured the Egyptian government that President
Bush, who announced in July that the conference would be held in the
fall, was committed to forging an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal before
he leaves office in January 2009.
"She says that she is determined, and the president of the United
States is determined to have a breakthrough during the remaining year
of this administration," Aboul Gheit said. "We have to believe them. I
cannot doubt them."
Just a day earlier, Aboul Gheit had spoken of postponing the conference
about which Egypt and Jordan, the other main Arab player in the peace
process, and Saudi Arabia had expressed serious doubts. They all fear
the gathering will be merely symbolic.
Tempering his positive reaction to Rice, Gheit stressed the need for
the conference to produce a document that will launch formal
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that includes a "timeline" for results.
"We have to go into the meeting ready to launch negotiations," he said,
adding that a timeline was needed to avoid "endless" talks that produce
nothing.
Rice has said she does not believe it's necessary to agree on a
timeline " also a demand of the Palestinians and an idea Israelis have
rejected. But she has pledged to look at different ways to mark and
memorialize progress during what all sides believe will be contentious
and lengthy negotiations.
Still, Rice and her aides were buoyant after the meetings in Cairo,
which precede a second round of U.S. talks with Israelis and
Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank towns of Bethlehem and
Ramallah on Wednesday and discussions with Jordan's King Abdullah in
London on Thursday.
One senior State Department official traveling with Rice said securing
support from Egypt, as well as hopefully Jordan later in the week,
would be instrumental in bringing "the rest of the relatively silent
Arab world" on board for the conference.
The Bush administration is particularly interested in having Saudi
Arabia, which does not have a peace deal with the Jewish state, attend
the conference that it sees as a springboard for a comprehensive
resolution to the wider Arab-Israeli conflict.
Rice, who is facing daunting challenges in getting the Israelis and
Palestinians to agree to a joint declaration to present for the
conference, smiled and nodded as Aboul Gheit spoke.
She warned there is hard work ahead but hoped that a specific date for
the meeting, which has not been scheduled, and invitations to attend
could be announced soon.
"We will continue to work and help them to create this document and we
will then be in a position I think fairly soon to talk about when this
meeting ought to take place," Rice said.
Two senior U.S. officials said later, however, they did not expect a
date or invitation list to be issued this week.
The Palestinians want a document prepared ahead of the conference that
deals with core issues of the peace negotiations, including the borders
of a future Palestinian state, the status of disputed Jerusalem, the
fate Palestinian refugees and Israeli settlements.
But Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert wants a vaguer joint statement
and has said agreement on the matter should not be prerequisite for the
Annapolis meeting.
Underscoring the difficulty of Rice's work, Palestinian and Israeli
negotiating teams met for a second time late Monday to try to thrash
out details of the joint document, but made no headway.
"So far, no advances have been made, and we are not deluding
ourselves," Palestinian negotiator Yasser Abed Rabbo said Tuesday.
But in addition to getting backing from Egypt on Tuesday, Rice also
seemed to have won over Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa, who
just last week derided the planned conference, saying the Americans
were just hoping for a photo opportunity.
After seeing Rice in Cairo, Moussa said he "felt American seriousness
concerning the peace conference and a great desire on the American side
to push matters positively toward a serious conference."
And, Aboul Gheit suggested Egypt would work with the Palestinians and
Israelis to help solidify the agenda. "All of us are required to help
in drafting the parameters, the principles, the understandings,
whatever will launch the negotiations on a sound basis," he said.
Rice arrived in the region on Sunday playing down the chances for a
breakthrough.
She has since been urging pushing Israeli and Palestinian leaders to
push ahead in their talks on the document and on Monday declared that
now is the time for the creation of a Palestinian state, which she said
is a key U.S. interest.
Copyright (c) 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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