Israel-Palestinian direct talks may restart: Abbas By Mohammed Assadi – Mon Aug 9, 4:46 pm ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Monday he might end an impasse in peace talks with Israel and resume direct talks with the Jewish State for the first time in almost two years.Abbas told reporters U.S. President Barack Obama's administration and many world leaders were putting pressure on him to agree to direct talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has said he is ready to begin immediately.Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, who is scheduled to see Abbas and Netanyahu on Tuesday, has conducted five rounds of indirect talks between the two men and their aides since May. Obama has said he wants the direct talks to begin by September.Now we are facing these pressures. Until now, we did not agree. We may face other pressures that we cannot endure. If that happens, I will study this thing with the leadership ... and take the appropriate decision,Abbas told reporters in a briefing at his office in Ramallah.Abbas also said if the quartet of the Middle East mediators -- the United States, European Union, Russia and the United Nations -- called on Israel to halt settlement activities and reach an agreement in 24 months, then I will immediately go to direct talks because it includes everything I am asking for.At a meeting in Moscow in March the quartet presented a package of measures with the aim of producing an agreement within two years to end Israeli occupation and establish an independent Palestinian state.Abbas has sought progress in indirect talks before any move to direct negotiations but has spoken of unprecedented international pressure to convince him to resume direct talks with Israel.
No one can endure the pressure that is being put on us, he said.Abbas said that before agreeing to resume direct talks, Israel must agree that the talks must tackle all the territories that it has occupied since capturing them in a 1967 war.He included Arab East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as the capital of their future state, the Jordan Valley, halting settlement activities and agreeing a timeline for the talks.Netanyahu, who has accused Abbas of wasting time, has said the Palestinians can bring all issues to the table.Last month, the Arab League's peace process committee approved a move to direct negotiations when Abbas saw fit.
When we listen to what he (Mitchell) has to say, we will decide,Abbas said.Direct talks have been suspended since Israel's December 2008-January 2009 Gaza war that it launched to suppress militant rocket fire from the Hamas-controlled coastal enclave. The Islamist group rejects any peace deal with Israel.(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta; Editing by Ori Lewis)
Ahmadinejad to visit Lebanon after Ramadan: FM
Sun Aug 8, 4:36 am ET
TEHRAN (AFP) – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will visit Lebanon after the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, a top official said Sunday, as Tehran pledged its support to Beirut and Damascus in face of any aggression from Israel.The president will go to Lebanon at the first occasion after Ramadan, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said at a joint news conference with his visiting Lebanese counterpart Ali al-Shami.The holy month, during which the Muslim faithful abstain from eating, drinking, smoking and having sex during daylight hours, is expected to begin on Thursday in Iran, depending on the sighting of the new moon.The last visit by an Iranian president to Lebanon was by reformist Mohammad Khatami in May 2003, while Lebanese President Michel Sleiman had visited Tehran in November 2008.Mottaki also pledged Iran's support to Lebanon and Syria against any threats from Israel.The government of the Islamic republic and the Iranian nation are standing with the Lebanese and Syrian governments and nations against the aggression and threats of the Zionist regime, Mottaki said.He said Iran was holding continuous consultations with Beirut and Damascus and Tehran is ready to answer positively any request from its brothers.Mottaki and Shami lashed out at Israel as they condemned the Jewish state for the recent clashes along the Israel-Lebanon border and the May 31 raid by its commandos on an aid flotilla heading to the blockaded territory of Gaza.The survival of the Zionist regime is facing serious problem, Mottaki said in comments translated by the English language Press TV channel.Shami, who acknowledged Iran's support over the Arab-Israel issue, added that Israeli aggression is due to its hostile nature.On August 4, a deadly firefight on the border between Israel and Lebanon, took the lives of an Israeli colonel, two Lebanese soldiers and a Lebanese journalist.The May 31 Israeli raid on the aid flotilla left nine pro-Palestinian activists dead and sparked an international outcry against the Jewish nation.
U.N.'s Ban names Turk, Israeli to flotilla probe
Sat Aug 7, 3:41 pm ET
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday named two veteran Turkish and Israeli diplomats to a panel that will investigate Israel's deadly May 31 commando raid on an aid flotilla.Joseph Ciechanover, a former senior official at Israel's Foreign Ministry, will be the Israeli representative on the panel, while the Turkish member will be Ozdem Sanberk, a diplomat who held senior positions in the Turkish Foreign Minister and the United Nations.Former New Zealand Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer will be the chairman of the panel, with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe acting as vice chairman. The committee will hold its first meeting on August 10 and expects to submit an initial progress report in mid-September.Israel's May 31 attack on a Turkish aid flotilla attempting to break through the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip resulted in the deaths of nine Turkish pro-Palestinian activists and sparked international outrage.The action led to a sharp deterioration in Israeli-Turkish relations and forced Israel to ease the blockade, which the Jewish state says aims to prevent Palestinian Hamas militants from acquiring the military capacity to attack Israel.After reacting coolly to the idea of a U.N. investigation -- Israel has already completed its own military investigation and started a civilian one -- Israel eventually agreed to cooperate with an investigative panel set up by Ban.The Obama administration strongly urged Israel to cooperate with the panel, diplomats in New York have told Reuters.
U.N. officials said that the panel will look at the circumstances of the raid and review the results of the Turkish and Israeli investigations, as well as consider ways to avoid similar incidents in the future.Western diplomats, however, say privately that the panel's mandate remains unclear.U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice infuriated Turkey this week when she issued a statement saying that the panel was not a substitute for those national investigations and its focus was appropriately on the future.The Turkish Foreign Ministry summoned the U.S. charge d'affaires in Ankara and expressed its irritation at what a Turkish official told Reuters was an alternative interpretation of Ban's investigative panel.(Reporting by Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Paul Simao)
France names envoy to relaunch Syria-Israel talks
Fri Aug 6, 8:14 pm ET
PARIS (Reuters) – President Nicolas Sarkozy has named a former French ambassador to the Middle East as a mediator between Israel and Syria in an effort to kick-start stalled peace talks, the French foreign ministry said on Friday.A ministry spokesman said Jean-Claude Cousseran, a former ambassador to Damascus and Cairo, would take up the role.I can confirm that (Sarkozy) has charged Jean-Claude Cousseran with a mission concerning the relaunch of the Israeli-Syrian part of the (Middle East) peace process, the spokesman said.The countries concerned and our main partners have been informed of his appointment.Tensions between Syria and Israel rose this year after Israeli President Shimon Perez accused Syria of supplying Scud missiles to the Lebanese Shi'ite movement Hezbollah.But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last month Israel remained interested in negotiating peace with Syria.
Damascus has also expressed willingness to return to the negotiating table, although President Bashar al Assad reiterated on Sunday he was unwilling to compromise on the return of the Golan Heights, occupied by the Israelis since 1967.In a statement published in Syrian media, Assad said Israel was the one placing obstacles in the way of peace and that the possibility of war in the Middle East was once again increasing.France's relations with Syria were strained by the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri in 2005. Initial U.N. reports implicated Syrian and Lebanese security agencies, but Damascus has said it had no hand in the bombing which killed Hariri and 22 others.Paris has sought to improve ties with Damascus since 2008 with a view to encouraging talks with Israel, considered by France to be a key step toward peace in the Middle East, diplomatic sources say.Turkey, traditionally Israel's only close Muslim ally, had for years acted as a mediator but its efforts were frustrated by regional tensions, notably over a three-week military offensive that the Jewish state launched in the Gaza Strip in late 2008.In May, relations between Israel and Turkey were plunged into turmoil when Israeli forces killed nine Turks aboard an aid ship trying to break an Israeli blockade of Gaza.(Reporting by Daniel Flynn)
Israel charges two Druze, Arab Israeli with spying for Syria by Gavin Rabinowitz – Thu Aug 5, 1:51 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – An Arab Israeli and two Druze residents of the occupied Golan Heights were charged on Thursday with spying for Syria and planning a kidnapping, Israeli officials said.The three men were charged in a Nazareth court with aggravated espionage, for allegedly passing information on Israeli submarine movements to Syrian intelligence and plotting to drug a Syrian pilot who had defected to Israel and spirit him over the border, according to court documents.
Fidaa al-Shaar and his father Majid al-Shaar from Majdal Shams in the Golan and Mahmud Massaweh from the northern Israeli village of Baka al-Gharbiyeh were charged with spying and having contact with the enemy,police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld told AFP.Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, in a letter to UN chief Ban Ki-moon, rejected the charges against the two Druze.The arrests in Majdal Shams... on fabricated accusations are an Israeli attempt to terrorise the Golan's inhabitants, Muallem charged, calling for the release of all Syrians held in Israeli jails.Ran Balter, an official from the Israeli public prosecutor's office, said the accused had been remanded in custody until further notice.At some stage in 2007 or 2006, contact was made between one of them and a Syrian government official, he told Israel public radio, saying Fidaa al-Shaar had transmitted messages while studying in Syria.
His father had held several meetings in Jordan and Turkey, and co-defendant Massaweh had meetings in Jordan and Cairo over the course of three years, Balter said.He said the defendants communicated from abroad via video calls and instant messaging and had used special code words like the bride and the shark.The bride is the man they thought was the pilot, the shark was reports on the submarine, he said, saying police had found syringes and substances with which to anaesthetise the pilot who defected to Israel in 1989 with his MiG fighter.The evidence is very strong -- there are confessions,he said.However, a lawyer for the two Golan residents denied his clients had confessed to espionage.They admit contact with this agent, but he is not an agent, he is an old family friend that moved back to Syria and now works for Syrian government,Nabih Khanjar told AFP.However, it is possible that this friendship was manipulated to get information from them without their knowledge, Khanjar said.Police arrested Fidaa al-Shaar in Majdal Shams on July 12, but all details about his arrest and those of the other two were initially the subject of a court-issued gag order.Majdal Shams is the main town on the Golan Heights which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War. Damascus demands a total Israeli withdrawal as the price for a peace settlement.Israel unilaterally annexed the Golan in 1981. The vast majority of its 18,000 Syrian inhabitants, mostly Druze, remaining from the Golan's original population of 150,000 have refused to take Israeli citizenship.
