Wednesday September 2, 2009
Israel, Palestinians hold high-level economic talks
By Jeffrey Heller
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel and the Palestinians on Wednesday held their highest-level talks since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took office, focusing on economic issues while formal peace negotiations remained stalled.
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Silvan Shalom in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv in this March 1, 2009 file photo . Israel and the Palestinians on Wednesday held their highest-level talks since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took office(REUTERS/Gil Cohen Magen/Files) |
The meeting was a signal from both sides that dialogue is still possible despite sharp differences Washington has been trying to bridge.
"We hope that away from politics, we will be able to do something on the ground to improve the economic realities of Palestine," Palestinian Economy Minister Bassem Khoury said with Israeli Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom at his side.
Israel has been easing travel restrictions for Palestinians in the West Bank in a declared bid to shore up President Mahmoud Abbas and the local economy, while maintaining a blockade of the Gaza Strip, an enclave run by Hamas Islamists.
"I think that the Palestinians have understood that there is no point in continuing to boycott the talks with Israel and that these talks will not be conditioned by any concessions on our part," Shalom told reporters.
But in the West Bank, Nabil Abu Rdainah, a spokesman for Abbas, reaffirmed the Palestinian position that peace talks, suspended since December, could not resume without an Israeli commitment to freeze settlement in the occupied West Bank.
He said the Jerusalem meeting, the first between Israeli and Palestinian cabinet ministers since Netanyahu's government was inaugurated in March, "fell within the framework of economic issues and was not related to political negotiations".
Later in the day in New York, the U.S. special envoy for Middle East peace, George Mitchell, planned to meet two Israeli officials as part of his push to restart negotiations leading to a peace deal and Palestinian statehood.
U.S. President Barack Obama has taken the public stance that Israel must halt all settlement activity under a 2003 peace "road map". Palestinians say settlements, built on land Israel occupied in a 1967 war, could deny them a viable state.
Netanyahu, who heads a right-leaning government, has resisted a complete construction moratorium, saying settlers were entitled to lead what he termed "normal lives".
A settlement deal would end the most serious rift in U.S.-Israeli relations in a decade and could lead to an announcement by Obama, during the U.N. General Assembly later this month, of a resumption of Middle East peace talks.
(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah)
(For blogs and links on Israeli politics and other Israeli and Palestinian news, go to http://blogs.reuters.com/axismundi)
Copyright © 2008 Reuters
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