By Arun Kumar, IANS,
Washington : As a US-brokered Middle East peace summit got underway here, US President Barack Obama urged Israeli and Palestinian leaders to seize the “moment of opportunity” as such a chance may not come again soon.
He was “hopeful, cautiously hopeful” that the talks could achieve a two-state solution to the long-running Mideast conflict, said Obama sharing the stage with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and the leaders of Egypt and Jordan.
“We are under no illusions,” he said at the start of a working White House dinner with Netanyahu, Abbas, Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Each made remarks before the dinner.
“Passions run deep… there’s a reason that the two-state solution has eluded previous generations — this is extraordinarily complex and extraordinarily difficult,” Obama said. “But, we know that the status quo is unsustainable.”
Also attending the dinner were US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Middle East Quartet Representative Tony Blair, the former British prime minister. The Quartet consists of the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union.
“We don’t seek a brief interlude between two wars, we don’t seek a temporary respite between outburst of terror,” Netanyahu said. “We seek a peace that will end the conflict between us once and for all… for our generation, our children’s generation and the next.”
“We do not want any blood to be shed – one drop of blood from the Israelis or the Palestinians,” said Abbas. “We want peace between the two countries… let us sign a formal agreement for peace and put an end to this long period of suffering forever.”
The White House working dinner in the Old Family Dining Room came after a day of Obama’s one-on-one meetings with the Israeli, Palestinian, Egyptian and Jordanian leaders. While acknowledging the high risks involved in launching a new Israeli-Palestinian peace bid when the parties still remain far apart on key core issues, he also asserted his intention for the United States to play a central role in the peace effort.
The United States will put “our full weight behind this effort,” Obama said. “We will be an active and sustained participant and support those who make difficult choices in support of peace.
But the US “cannot impose a solution and cannot want it more than the parties themselves,” Obama said. The peace effort involves “enormous risks,” he said. “But we cannot do it for them. Ultimately it’s going to require leadership on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides as well as of those in the region who say they want a Palestinian state.”
Netanyahu and Abbas “are two leaders who I believe want peace,” Obama said in earlier remarks from the White House Rose Garden.
As I told them today, this moment of opportunity may not soon come again. They cannot afford to let it slip away,” he said flanked by Clinton and Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell.
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at [email protected])