Biden Urges Support for Mideast Talks Before Speech (Update1)
March 11, 2010, 12:50 AM EST(Adds Arab League statement in sixth paragraph.)
By Gwen Ackerman and Jonathan Ferziger
March 11 (Bloomberg) -- Vice President Joe Biden will speak in Tel Aviv on U.S.-Israeli relations, one day after telling Israelis and Palestinians they will be held accountable for actions jeopardizing peace efforts.
“It is incumbent on both parties to build an atmosphere of support for negotiations and not to complicate them,” Biden said yesterday in the West Bank city of Ramallah after meeting Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Israel’s announcement of plans to build 1,600 new homes in east Jerusalem was the second construction project approved this week in areas sought by Palestinians for a future state, and came as Biden visited the region to revive peace talks. The U.S. condemned the Israeli step.
The U.S. envoy for Mideast peace, George Mitchell, is headed back to the region after consultations in Washington and will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Abbas early next week, State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said.
In Cairo, the Arab League recommended yesterday that its members should withdraw backing for indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinians, Egypt’s official Middle East News Agency said. The decision from a panel of the league was sent to foreign ministers of member nations for their decision.
The announcement of plans to build new housing units “in the Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem, is a clear rejection of peace efforts,” a statement from the 22- member league issued by MENA said.
Palestinian leaders, who had refused to talk directly to Israel because of continued building in the West Bank, this week agreed to a U.S. proposal for indirect negotiations that Israel also accepted.
Abbas on Israel
“I call on Israel to halt settlement activities and stop imposing facts on the ground,” Abbas said. He said Israel shouldn’t “waste the opportunity to make a real peace” and should “allow efforts by President Barack Obama and George Mitchell to succeed.”
Biden said the U.S. will keep pushing for a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict and ensure that Palestinians can travel between the West Bank and Gaza Strip without interference.
“Our administration is fully committed to the Palestinian people and to achieving a Palestinian state which is viable and contiguous,” Biden said after a two-hour meeting with Abbas.
The vice president later traveled in a 20-vehicle motorcade from Ramallah to Bethlehem, where he visited Nassar Stone Investment Co., a maker of stone tabletops and marble floor tiles with customers in the U.S. Biden stopped at a souvenir shop, where he bought a golden cross, and met business leaders for a dinner of houmous, tabouleh and lamb chops at the Jacir Palace Intercontinental Hotel.
Israeli Explanation
Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai defended the construction in east Jerusalem, saying the land wasn’t included in a partial building freeze declared by the government in November. He added that the approval was “technical” and related only to the filing of the plan.
“I regret any grief caused the vice president by the timing of this,” Yishai said on Israel Radio.
The homes approved will be built in an area of Jerusalem captured by Israel from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed in a move not recognized internationally. The Palestinians want east Jerusalem as the capital of a state they are seeking to establish in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
Biden condemned Israel’s plan to build in east Jerusalem, saying it threatened to undermine peace efforts. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Jordan’s Minister of Information and Communication Nabil Sharif, and European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton also criticized the proposal.
“As we move forward, the United States will hold both sides accountable for any statements or actions that inflame tensions or prejudice the outcome of talks, as this decision did,” Biden said.
Diplomatic Setbacks
The last round of peace talks collapsed in 2008 after Israel carried out a military operation in the Gaza Strip in what it said was a bid to stop rocket attacks on its southern towns and cities.
Previous U.S. efforts to revive talks foundered on the issue of West Bank settlements, with Netanyahu announcing a partial building halt and Abbas refusing to negotiate without a freeze on all Israeli construction.
--With assistance from Indira Lakshmanan in Washington, Bill Varner in New York, Daniel Williams in Cairo, Saud Abu Ramadan in Gaza City, Calev Ben-David in Jerusalem, and Massoud Derhally in Amman. Editors: Peter Hirschberg, Edward DeMarco, Laurie Asseo.
To contact the reporters on this story: Gwen Ackerman in Jerusalem at gackerman@bloomberg.net; Jonathan Ferziger in Bethlehem and Ramallah at jferziger@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Hirschberg at phirschberg@bloomberg.net.
