WEST BANK: Mitchell, Abbas hold talks

Record ID: 561871

  • Title: WEST BANK: Mitchell, Abbas hold talks
  • Date: 10th October 2009
  • Summary: RAMALLAH, WEST BANK (OCTOBER 9, 2009) (REUTERS) VEHICLE CARRYING UNITED STATES ENVOY TO THE MIDDLE EAST GEORGE MITCHELL PULLING UP OUTSIDE PALESTINIAN PRESIDENTIAL COMPOUND MITCHELL GETTING OUT OF CAR, GREETED BY PALESTINIAN NEGOTIATOR SAEB EREKAT, WALKING INTO BUILDING MITCHELL MEETING PALESTINIAN PRESIDENT MAHMOUD ABBAS CLOSE OF ABBAS CLOSE OF MITCHELL DELEGATION SEATED MITCHELL AND ABBAS SHAKING HANDS MITCHELL WALKING WITH PALESTINIAN NEGOTIATOR EREKAT (SOUNDBITE) (English) UNITED STATES ENVOY TO THE MIDDLE EAST GEORGE MITCHELL, SAYING: "We've invited the parties to send their representatives to Washington in the very near future to continue our intensive discussions and I told the President today that we value our continued consultations with him and with the Palestinian leadership." MEDIA CREWS (SOUNDBITE) (English) SAEB EREKAT, PALESTINIAN NEGOTIATOR, SAYING: "We want negotiations with clear cut terms of reference we want negotiations with time sailing. We want negotiations with mechanisms to end the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 as were specified in the road map. These are our rights, these are the commitments emanating from the Road Map." CLOSE OF CAMERAMAN (SOUNDBITE) (English) SAEB EREKAT, PALESTINIAN NEGOTIATOR, SAYING: "We hope that President Obama will proceed in this trust bestowed on him by the Nobel prize committee, people have expectations from him the world has expectations from him and we believe that the most critical point for him in this expectations after winning this prize is that he finds a way to end the Israeli occupation that began in 1967." WIDE OF MITCHELL AND EREKAT SHAKING HANDS AND WALKING AWAY
  • Embargoed: 25th October 2009 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA9US6C550VDWMBZ91YG0KH4FY9
  • Story Text: U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell meets with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the west Bank City of Ramallah in a bid to advance Peace talks with Israel.
    U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell met on Friday (October 9) with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah in his latest bid to advance the Mideast peace process.
    Mitchell told reporters said Palestinian and Israeli parties have been invited to Washington to continue consultations.
    "We've invited the parties to send their representatives to Washington in the very near future to continue our intensive discussions and I told the President today that we value our continued consultations with him and with the Palestinian leadership," " Mitchell told reporters at a news conference after his meeting with Abbas.
    Palestinian Negotiator Saeb Erekat said that the Palestinians expected the terms specified in the Road Map to be upheld.
    "We want negotiations with clear cut terms of reference we want negotiations with time sailing. We want negotiations with mechanisms to end the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 as were specified in the road map. These are our rights, these are the commitments emanating from the Road Map," Erekat told reporters.
    "We hope that President Obama will proceed in this trust bestowed on him by the Nobel prize committee, people have expectations from him the world has expectations from him and we believe that the most critical point for him in this expectations after winning this prize is that he finds a way to end the Israeli occupation that began in 1967," he added.
    Earlier on Friday, Mitchell met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.
    Netanyahu's office issued a statement saying that the talks were constructive in advancing the peace process.
    Netanyahu agreed to continue the conversations in the coming days, it added. The U.S. envoy and his aides would meet a team of Netanyahu representatives on Saturday.
    Mitchell made no statement on his meeting with Netanyahu, which was prefaced by mixed signals from members of the right-leaning Israeli coalition government.
    Low-yield peace talks limped on last year under the previous government of Ehud Olmert, until derailed by the Gaza war.
    U.S. President Barack Obama has made resumption of substantive negotiations one of his policy priorities and underscored the goal in a speech to the U.N. general assembly last month, saying it was "past time to stop talking about negotiations; it is time to move forward".
    Last month Obama arranged a meeting between Netanyahu and Abbas in New York, but with scant results. He said further meetings would be held at lower levels and he would receive a status report sometime in October.
    The New York encounter was seen as a humiliation for Abbas by many Palestinians, and the pro-Western president now appears weakened politically.
    Since his appointment in January, Mitchell, 76, has visited Israel and the West Bank nine times. The missions have been stymied by Netanyahu's refusal to halt settlement construction and by Arab states' reluctance to make peace overtures.
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