MIDDLE EAST: U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice holds talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders on peace process and unity deal

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sought explanations on Sunday (February 18) from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas about a unity government that Israel and Washington saw they will shun if it does not agree to a set of international criteria. Rice travelled to the occupied West Bank to meet the moderate Palestinian leader just hours after Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said prospects for peace had dimmed. Rice, Olmert and Abbas are all due to meet in Jerusalem on Monday (February 19), but no joint news conference is planned -- a sign that expectations are low. "Foremost being the issue that we will discuss today, which is the three-way meeting that will be held tomorrow with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in order to explore the horizon of future Israeli Palestinian relations and the horizon for a peace process," Abbas told reporters before meeting with Rice privately. "And it is of course and interesting - even complicated time, and I have been saying, Mr. President, that a number of people have said it's a complicated time, and I've said that if I waited for an uncomplicated time to come to the Middle East, perhaps I would never get on the airplane. So, I look very much forward with discussing the current situation with you, hearing more about your discussions in Saudi Arabia. I look forward to discussing with you the trilateral we will have with Prime Minister Olmert tomorrow. I hope that this meeting with the three of us will be an opportunity to examine the current situation, to commit - re-commit to existing agreements, but also to begin to explore and probe the political and diplomatic horizon - and I very much look forward to that meeting," Rice told reporters, with Abbas seated at her side. The Quartet of international mediators, comprised of the United States, European Union, Russia and United Nations, have insisted that any Palestinian government must recognise Israel, renounce violence and abide by existing interim peace accords. After the Rice-Abbas meeting, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the United States has been reiterating the Quartet's standards, but added that judgement of the new Palestinian unity government should be reserved until the government has been formed. "They have told us in Washington, told us here, the Secretary reiterated today that the judgement of the government will be based on the government's compliance on the principles of the Quartet - period. The government is not formed yet. The programme is not presented - so that's what the Americans said so far. As far as we're concerned, Abu Mazen reiterated our position that we want to end the internal fighting - the lawlessness, chaos. We want to be able to have a quiet in order to restore public order, the rule of law, the one authority, the one gun. Thank you very much," Erekat said. Earlier on Sunday, Rice had met with Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz. Also on Sunday, Olmert told his cabinet U.S. President George W. Bush had agreed in a telephone call on Friday to boycott Abbas's planned unity government with the Islamist Hamas group, if the Quartet's demands on Palestinian policy towards Israel were not met. "A Palestinian government that does not accept the Quartet's conditions, cannot receive recognition and there will not be cooperation with it. I spoke about this on Friday with the President of the United States, and I can tell you the Israeli and U.S. positions are completely identical," Olmert said. Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, authorised by Abbas with the task of forming the new coalition Palestinian government, says Palestinians will remain united, despite the international pressures to change or clarify their policies. "We are standing with President Abu Mazen in protecting this agreement and against the outside pressure by the American administration and by others who seek to to return the clock backward and to keep a situation of internal disturbance in the Palestinian area. We are a one and united Palestinian rank to protect this agreement and in the face of outside pressures," Haniyeh said outside his Gaza City office. More than 90 Palestinians have been killed in recent factional warfare between Fatah and Hamas. Both groups hope the proposed unity deal can end internal violence and also persuade Western donors to restore direct aid to the Palestinian Authority, cut off after Hamas came to power.

ITN Source | February 18, 2007

Tags:. .sought. .moderate. .clock. .saudi. .jerusalem