Jordan Times
Thursday, October 18, 2007
King to meet Rice in London today
AMMAN (JT) - His Majesty King Abdullah is
expected to meet US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in London today to
discuss preparations for the US-proposed international Mideast peace conference
due this fall, a Royal Court statement said.
The meeting comes as the top US diplomat wraps up her seventh visit to the
region this year.
The King on Wednesday left on a private visit to the UK.
During her second meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas this week,
Rice heard a strong message from the president, who warned yesterday he would
not attend the meeting unless it yielded concrete results, and accused Israel of
hampering peace efforts.
Despite Rice’s four days in the Middle East, the gaps between Israel and the
Palestinians are still large, Agence France-Presse said.
"Time must not be lost because that's not in anyone's interest. We cannot go to
the meeting at any cost. It is unacceptable to go there at any cost," Abbas told
reporters after talks with Rice.
"We want to reach a clear document that will help us to start negotiations under
a definite timetable. We need a clear document and a deadline to reach a
definitive result," Abbas added.
Disagreement between Israel and the Palestinians on the content of the document,
which negotiating teams are drawing up to serve as a basis for the pending
conference, has been seen as a possible cause for delaying the summit.
The Palestinians want a detailed agreement and time frame for reaching solutions
to the thorniest issues in the conflict, while the Israelis want a more vague
document, with core issues left until later, and no timetable.
Abbas also said Israeli actions on the ground, such as recent orders to
confiscate Arab land in villages outside Jerusalem were "getting in the way of
efforts to reach a substantial document to submit at the meeting".
Rice has been in the Middle East since Sunday in an effort to hammer out
agreement between Israel and the Palestinians on the outlines of a peace deal
that the two sides will negotiate after the meeting in Annapolis, Maryland.
Palestinian presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina accused Israel of not
taking the meeting seriously enough and called on Washington to put pressure on
the Jewish state to advance pre-conference talks.
"Israel does not want a timetable or negotiations on a final status [of the
Palestinian territories]," he said.
"The credibility of the American administration depends on pressures it is ready
to exert on Israel," Abu Rudeina said.
Determined to galvanise the peace process after nearly seven years of deadlock,
Rice returned to Jerusalem to meet the head of Israel's negotiating team,
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
On Monday, she dismissed suggestions that the conference should be delayed, but
mentioned December, as an alternative to the more frequently touted November,
for the first time as a possible date for the meeting.
A devout Christian whose father and grandfather were church ministers, Rice on
Wednesday prayed at the biblical birthplace of Jesus, at the Church of the
Nativity in Bethlehem, lit a candle and called for reconciliation.
"Being here at the birthplace of my lord and saviour Jesus Christ has been a
very special and moving experience," she said.
"These great monotheist religions that have inhabited this land together have an
opportunity to overcome differences, to put aside grievances, to make the power
of religion a power of healing and a power of reconciliation."
She met local officials and businessmen in a town that has seen its main tourist
income slump dramatically since the second Palestinian Intifada broke out in
2000 after the last US-brokered peace talks failed.
Rice has said a two-state solution to one of the world's most intractable
conflicts is essential.
The latest US push to revive the peace process comes after nearly seven years of
diplomatic deadlock following the collapse of the Camp David peace summit and
violence between the two sides that has killed nearly 5,900 people.
Violence continued on Wednesday, when an Israeli soldier and a Palestinian
fighter were killed in Gaza after the military launched an incursion into the
southern part of the territory controlled by Hamas.