BICOM

The US State Department in Washington announced yesterday night that the Quartet of Middle East mediators had proposed a meeting between Israeli and Palestinian Authority representatives in the Jordanian capital of Amman with the target date of 23 October. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said that these would be the initial talks in renewed peace negotiations, and expressed hope that the two sides would respond positively to the proposal. So far Israel has accepted the Quartet’s call to resume negotiations, but the Palestinians continue to demand that their preconditions.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said yesterday that the Palestinian UN initiative for recognition of statehood would not progress in the foreseeable future and that “now is the time” for talks. Clinton told the Associated Press that it is impossible to obtain a state via the United Nations, and called on the Palestinians to resume negotiations with Israel immediately. 

Clinton stated that she was hopeful that there could be a meeting between the sides by the end of the month. “I think that the situation has changed from a total paralysis or stagnation between the parties,” she said. That’s because the Israelis are saying “they’re willing, ready and able to go into negotiations” and Abbas knows he cannot get a state through the United Nations, she said.

Clinton added reaching a peace agreement would be “really hard under any circumstances,” but that she believed “the spotlight…shining on this process has the potential for moving both sides in a way that we haven’t experienced for quite some time, maybe not since the Camp David effort.” Clinton’s remarks came before news broke of the Shalit deal.