Last update - 00:00 26/11/2007
Bush: U.S. can't impose peace, but we can help
By Aluf Benn, Avi Issacharoff, Barak Ravid and Shmuel Rosner, Haaretz Correspondents and The Associated Press
Hours before the opening of a high-stakes international conference on the Middle East, U.S. President George W. Bush told Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas that the United States cannot impose Middle East peace, but can help facilitate it.
Bush, Olmert and Abbas expressed hope Monday that peace between Israel and the Palestinians could finally be achieved.
The three leaders offered hopeful words, but their statements also hinted at the serious divisions that exist over the best path to peace. Olmert and Abbas met separately with Bush at the White House.
"I'm looking forward to continuing our serious dialogue with you and the president of the Palestinian Authority [Abbas] to see whether or not peace is possible. I'm optimistic," Bush said at Olmert's side.
Later, after a similar meeting with Abbas, Bush said, "we want to help you. We want there to be peace. We want the people in the Palestinian territories to have hope."
Olmert said that international support - from Bush and also, presumably, from the Arab nations that will attend the conference - is very important to us and could make all the difference.
"This time, it's different because we are going to have a lot of participation in what I hope will launch a serious process of negotiations between us and the Palestinians," Olmert said, referring to the talks expected to begin in earnest after this week's U.S.-hosted meetings.
For his part, Abbas stressed when he appeared with Bush the need for talks to address key issues of Palestinian statehood, delicate discussions that have doomed previous peace efforts.
"We have a great deal of hope that this conference will produce permanent status negotiations, expanded negotiations, over all permanent status issues that would lead to a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian people," he said. "This is a great initiative and we need his [Bush's] continuing effort to achieve this objective."
Earlier Monday, senior member of the Palestinian delegation to the Annapolis summit Yasser Abed Rabbo said that the elusive joint Israeli-Palestinian statement on the contours of future peace talks is within reach.
After months of trying to forge a joint declaration, Israel and the Palestinians have made an 11th-hour push in recent days to come up with a statement for presentation at the gathering, which is to be the first time that Israel, a large group of Arab states and international envoys from around the world sit down together to try to relaunch the peace process.
"We will reach a joint paper today or tomorrow," Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior aide to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, told reporters. "There is a persistent American effort to have this statement."
U.S. President George W. Bush was expected to lend his clout to help nail down an agreement in his meetings with Olmert and Abbas Monday.
Talks on the joint statement had faltered over a Palestinian desire that it address, at least in general terms, key issues of Palestinian statehood - final borders, sovereignty over disputed Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees.
Israel has pressed for a broader, vaguer statement of commitment to two states living side-by-side in peace. It has promised to negotiate the contentious issues, however, in the formal negotiations that are to follow the conference.
On Sunday, U.S. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said that the joint declaration was not as important as it might have seemed when it was first broached.
Hadley said, "The two sides took the unexpected step of seeking negotiations, and the declaration no longer needed to serve as a vehicle to prod them to do so."
"If we get something, if they can agree on some things as an input to the negotiations, that would be fine," Hadley said. "But I think it is really no longer on the critical path to a successful conference."
Palestinian negotiators Ahmed Qureia and Saeb Erekat met with Livni, Israel's lead negotiator, for unscheduled talks Sunday evening. Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Welch also met with Palestinian negotiators Sunday in an attempt to reach a breakthrough, a member of the Palestinian delegation said.
Meanwhile, Bush said Sunday that the upcoming Middle East peace conference offers all sides a chance to "redouble their efforts" of achieving a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Bush said that the conference would offer a strong show of international support for Israeli and Palestinian leaders to restart peace talks and renew their commitment to the U.S.-backed road map towards an independent Palestinian state.
"I call upon all those gathering in Annapolis this week to redouble their efforts to turn dreams of peace into reality," Bush said in a statement. "I remain personally committed to implementing my vision of two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security."
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