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(04/25/08 3:11am)
WASHINGTON – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wants the Bush administration to press Israel to stop expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank – a step he says is needed to make progress in Mideast peace talks. The White House acknowledges the talks are stagnant five months after both sides pledged to reach a deal by January.\nAbbas was to meet with President Bush on Thursday.\n“The Palestinians and the Israelis have made halting progress,” White House press secretary Dana Perino said before the meeting. She said both sides took “a few steps forward” after the Annapolis, Md., conference last November launched a new round of talks, and Bush visited the Mideast in January.\n“There has been a stall in that,” Perino said. “While conversations have been ongoing between the two, the tensions still remain high on many of the issues, including the road map issues, one of them being settlements.”\nIn a meeting Wednesday with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Abbas said time was running out if that target laid out in Annapolis was to be met and that more pressure must be exerted on Israel to stop the expansion of West Bank settlements, according to the chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.\n“We are serious in having a serious negotiations to reach an agreement by the end of the year, but the gaps are still wide between us and the Israelis,” Abbas said, speaking later to the Arab-American Institute,\nHalting Israeli expansion in the West Bank is a major component of the so-called road map blueprint for peace.\n“I am telling you frankly that the most important obstacle to the peace process and the negotiations is the continuation of the settlement activities,” Abbas said in his speech. “Therefore, I am calling on the Israeli government to stop all settlement activities so we can hold proper meetings to reach a solution on the core issues.”\nAbbas aides said he had pressed Rice for U.S. action on the matter.\nAbbas, who is struggling for authority in the West Bank against the militant Hamas movement that controls Gaza, wants a framework peace agreement by January with timetables and specifics leading to the creation of a Palestinian state and not just a “declaration of principles” as suggested by some Israeli officials. He has said his talks with Bush will focus on achieving a deal on core issues, not just promises.\nBush met with Jordan’s King Abdullah on Wednesday. The White House meetings were a prelude to next month’s trip by Bush to the Middle East to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of Israel. He also was expected to visit Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Bush hopes to achieve a peace deal between the Palestinians and Israel before he leaves office in January.\nThe administration had been holding out hope it could arrange a peace summit during the president’s Mideast trip, perhaps at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik, where Bush is set to see Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The idea was to have Arab leaders endorse an interim statement demonstrating at least some progress, officials said.\nBut there are deep misgivings about such a meeting among both Arabs and the Israelis, given the slow pace of negotiations, and prospects for the summit are slim, officials said.\nThe core issues remain the final borders of a Palestinian state, the fate of Jerusalem, disputed Israeli settlements, refugees, water and future relations between the two states.
(11/28/07 4:04am)
Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed Tuesday to immediately resume long-stalled talks toward a deal by the end of next year that would create an independent Palestinian state, using a U.S.-hosted Mideast peace conference to launch their first negotiations in seven years.\nIn a joint statement read by President Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas pledged to start discussions on the core issues of the conflict next month and accepted the United States as arbiter of interim steps.\n“We agree to immediately launch good-faith bilateral negotiations in order to conclude a peace treaty resolving all outstanding issues, including all core issues without exception, as specified in previous agreements,” it said.\n“We agree to engage in vigorous, ongoing and continuous negotiations and shall make every effort to conclude an agreement before the end of 2008,” the document said. The agreement was reached after weeks of intense diplomacy and was uncertain until just before Bush announced it.\nThe conference at the U.S. Naval Academy has been greeted by heavy skepticism, with many questioning its timing and prospects for success, especially given the weaknesses of Olmert and Abbas, whose leadership is challenged by the militant Hamas movement.\nBut Bush, in a separate address, defended the decision to hold the Annapolis conference, saying it was the right time to launch peace talks and urging representatives of more than 50 participating countries and organizations to support the effort.\n“First, the time is right because Palestinians and Israelis have leaders who are determined to achieve peace,” he said. “Second, the time is right because a battle is under way for the future of the Middle East and we must not cede victory to the extremists. Third, the time is right because the world understands the urgency of supporting these negotiations.”\nUnder the workplan, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators will begin talks on the most contentious issues in the conflict on Dec. 12 and Abbas and Olmert will hold private biweekly talks throughout the process, which will be monitored by the U.S.\nYet none of those difficult issues were mentioned in the joint document, which was to be endorsed by the conference participants, including key Arab nations like Saudi Arabia and Syria, later in the day.\nAnd, despite their agreement and impassioned rhetoric, neither Olmert nor Abbas showed any sign of yielding on the fundamental differences that have led to the collapse of all previous peace efforts: the borders of a Palestinian state, the status of disputed Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees.\nBut Olmert did promise that “the negotiations will address all the issues which thus far have been evaded. We will not avoid any subject. While this will be an extremely difficult process for many of us, it is nevertheless inevitable.”\nFor his part, Abbas made an impassioned appeal to Israelis to support the peace process, saying that war and terrorism “belong to the past.”\n“Neither we nor you must beg for peace from the other. It is a joint interest for us and you,” he said. “Peace and freedom is a right for us, just as peace and security is a right for you and us.”\nAssociated Press reporters Amy Teibel, Mohammed Daraghmeh, Anne Gearan and Ben Feller contributed to this story.
(10/26/07 2:33am)
The Bush administration imposed sweeping new sanctions against Iran Thursday – the harshest in nearly three decades – cutting off key Iranian military and banking institutions from the American financial system for Tehran’s alleged support for terrorism and nuclear weapons ambitions.\nIn the broadest U.S. unilateral penalties on Iran since the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in 1979, the administration slapped sanctions on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, a main unit of its defense ministry, three of its largest banks and eight people that it said are engaged in missile trade and back extremist groups throughout the Middle East.\nSecretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the moves would further isolate the Islamic republic’s government by further distancing it from the international economy and discouraging its trading partners from continuing to do \nbusiness with it.\nAt the same time, they stressed that offers for negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program remain on the table and that the sacnctions are not a sign of imminent military action. The U.S. officials insist – over Iranian denials – that the nuclear program is a cover for atomic weapons development.\n“Unfortunately, the Iranian government continues to spurn our offer of open negotiations, instead threatening peace and security,” through its nuclear program, production and export of ballistic missiles and backing for Shia insurgents in Iraq, the Taliban in Afghanistan, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, Rice said.\nThe United States has long labeled Iran a state supporter of terrorism and has been working for years to gain support for tougher sanctions from the international community aimed at keeping the country from developing nuclear weapons. It has won two U.N. Security Council sanctions resolutions but a third has been held up by Chinese and Russian opposition.\nAnd Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized it, saying new international sanctions are not advisable.\n“Why worsen the situation by threatening sanctions and bring it to a dead end?” Putin said in a veiled reference to the U.S. push for harsher international sanctions. “It’s not the best way to resolve the situation by running around like a madman with a razor blade in his hand.”
(09/20/07 2:04am)
The labor union representing U.S. diplomats called Wednesday for the State Department’s top auditor to step down pending the results of a congressional investigation into whether he blocked fraud probes in Afghanistan and Iraq for political reasons.\nThe American Foreign Service Association said the accused official, Inspector General Howard J. Krongard, should “surrender day-to-day control” of his office until the “grave allegations of malfeasance,” including charges he ignored security lapses at the new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, \nare resolved.\n“The worse-case scenario in corruption is when it endangers lives,” AFSA President John K. Naland said in a statement. “The worse-case scenario in public service is when the watchdog becomes the suspected violator. Both of these allegations have been leveled against \nMr. Krongard.\n“As long as he maintains day-to-day control, his office’s ability to do its vital job with full credibility will be compromised. He should step down until the allegations are resolved one way or another,” \nNaland said.\nThe statement was released a day after Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent Krongard a 14-page letter detailing numerous serious accusations against him lodged by seven current and former officials in his office.\n“Your partisan political ties have led you to halt investigations, censor reports and refuse to cooperate with law enforcement agencies,” Waxman wrote in the letter.\nA central theme in the letter is that Krongard, a Republican political appointee, prevented his staff from cooperating with Justice Department probes and refused to send his staff to Iraq and Afghanistan to look into allegations of fraud and wasteful spending involving the more than $3.6 billion the State Department has spent on contracts in the two countries.\nIn response, Krongard, who has been in Afghanistan and is en route to Iraq, issued a statement saying, “The allegations, as described to me and in certain media reports, are replete with inaccuracies including those made by persons with their own agendas.”\nKrongard said he has tried to assist other government agencies, while taking care to avoid overlap, and added, “I look forward to cooperating with the committee and receiving the opportunity to respond in full to these allegations.”