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WORLD> Middle East
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Livni: Time running out on Israel-Palestinian deal
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-10-06 09:59 She emphasized that the goal is a full peace treaty, breaking from Olmert, who despaired of completing an accord by the target date and hoped for a declaration of principles or status report instead.
She endorsed the Palestinian view of the negotiations as an all-or-nothing affair, with no partial accords or agreements on some issues but not others. She said the two sides concur that "nothing is agreed upon until everything is agreed upon." Also unlike Olmert, Livni did not spell out the shape of an agreement as she sees it. In a newspaper interview last week, Olmert said peace would mean Israel's relinquishing control of the West Bank or equivalent territory as well as much of the Arab section of Jerusalem. "We agreed to handle the talks in the negotiating rooms, not in the headlines," Livni said. Setting borders is just one of the core issues that have stymied negotiators for years. Others are control over Jerusalem's explosive holy sites and a solution for Palestinian refugees. A host of security issues also confronts the two sides after decades of violent confrontation. Livni warned against allowing Israel's internal political unrest and the US election campaign to deflect the two sides from their goals. "If we leave the negotiating rooms and look at the calendar, or think that a government is changing, or an administration is changing, and we have to reach something partial, something that doesn't offer a response to the genuine demands of the Palestinians and Israelis," she said, "that will be a mistake that we can't allow ourselves." |
