Olmert, Livni try to resolve crisis ahead of Annapolis - Haaretz

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Wed., November 21, 2007 Kislev 11, 5768

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Olmert, Livni try to resolve crisis ahead of Annapolis

By Barak Ravid, Avi Issacharof and Mazal Mualem

Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority over the text of the joint declaration to be made at the upcoming Annapolis meeting are making progress. The two teams, led by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Ahmed Qureia (Abu Ala), continued their work until late last night.

The two sides managed to bridge a number of differences, the main agreement being that the declaration would concentrate on the process and the negotiations after the summit, and not on the core issues.

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"There is optimism compared with recent days, and there is a good chance of reaching a mutually agreed upon text of the declaration in coming days," said an official source in Jerusalem.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will travel to Sharm Al-Sheikh today to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, to discuss Arab participation in the summit. Arab League foreign ministers will meet in Cairo on Thursday to debate the issue of participating at Annapolis.

Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) met yesterday for over two hours, meeting alone for part of the meeting while the rest of the time broad teams of negotiators met to discuss the joint declaration. Other issues also arose during the meeting, including the release of 441 Palestinian prisoners.

Olmert and Abbas discussed the day after Annapolis, and agreed that follow-up talks would be very intensive. Olmert told the cabinet yesterday that an agreement should be reached within a year.

Palestinian sources said that no breakthroughs or significant advances were made at yesterday's meeting between Olmert and Abbas. According to the sources, not a single item in the joint declaration to be made at the end of the summit has been agreed to yet. It is possible that in the end there will be separate declarations, or instead a declaration with little real content concerning the issues relating to the permanent agreement between the sides.

Saeb Erekat, the chief PA negotiator, characterized the meeting as serious and difficult. He said that the leaders exchanged new proposals during the meeting, and agreed that the negotiation teams would continue their work to try to bridge gaps.

The two leaders exchanged position papers on the open issues. Olmert, for example, proposed that the Palestinian state would exist alongside Israel, the Jewish state, with "recognized borders."

On the other side, the Palestinians demanded that the Annapolis declaration include "the Palestinian state with the borders of June 4, 1967, alongside Israel," with no mention of the term "Jewish state."

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