Palestinian negotiator calls for summit of great powers to resolve conflict

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/06/palestinian-negotiator-summit-great-powers-conflict

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An international conference of the world's great powers could help to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the face of the impasse in the current bilateral talks, according to a senior Palestinian negotiator who walked out of the peace process last month.

Mohammed Shtayyeh, who had led the Palestinian negotiating team along with Saeb Erekat since talks resumed in July, said a summit along the lines of the recent Geneva talks on the Iranian nuclear programme was needed to avoid another failure in the quest to end the decades-long conflict.

His proposal came as the US secretary of state, John Kerry, visited the region in a fresh effort to bring movement to the stagnating talks. Kerry was due to meet the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, for a third time on Friday morning, following two meetings on Thursday as well as a session with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas.

Kerry and John Allen, a retired US general who is advising the secretary of state, presented both sides with proposals for security arrangements in the Jordan valley, a strip of land in the West Bank abutting the border with Jordan. Israel wants to keep a military presence there following any peace deal. The US believes progress on this issue could persuade Netanyahu to discuss borders.

Details of the US plan were not disclosed, but the Palestinians rejected the proposals as "prolonging and maintaining the occupation", Reuters reported.

The Jordan valley has huge strategic and economic importance to Israel. The Palestinians insist it is an integral part of a future Palestinian state, which must control its own borders and entry points.

After meeting Abbas, Kerry told reporters in Ramallah that the pair had discussed "issues of security in the region, security for the state of Israel, security for a future Palestine".

He added: "I think the interests are very similar, but there are questions of sovereignty, questions of respect and dignity which are obviously significant to the Palestinians, and for the Israelis very serious questions of security and also of longer-term issues of how we end this conflict once and for all."

The US-sponsored peace talks are around halfway through their allotted nine-month timespan, and there is mounting concern at the marked lack of progress and Israel's continued settlement expansion plans.

Writing in Haaretz, Shtayyeh said he had quit the negotiations because of the absence of "a serious Israeli partner".

He went on: "It's time to officially accept the reality: a nuclear occupying power like Israel is comfortable in the current setting of negotiations. The Israeli government is not pushed to move because of the huge disparity in power between Israel and Palestine, and the Israeli lobby's strength with the majority of the US Congress that fully backs the Israeli position."

An international Geneva-style summit "could set and implement requirements and obligations for peace rather than granting impunity to the stronger party so it can violate agreements without any sort of arbitration mechanism", he said.

Kerry is expected to return to the region in around two weeks.

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