By Arun Kumar, IANS
Washington : President George Bush has voiced optimism that a US sponsored Middle East conference that starts Tuesday with over 40 nations including India participating will lead to lasting peace between Israel and Palestine “living side by side” as two democratic states.
“We’ve come together this week because we share a common goal: two democratic states — Israel and Palestine — living side by side in peace and security,” said the president as he welcomed participants ahead of the conference that gets under way at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, about 50 km from here Tuesday.
India’s Minister for Science and Technology Kapil Sibal and the prime minister’s special envoy for West Asia Chinmaya R. Gharekhan were among those who heard Bush outline his vision at a dinner hosted by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Monday.
“Achieving this goal requires difficult compromises — and the Israelis and Palestinians have elected leaders committed to making them,” Bush said with the two key players, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas listening.
“Achieving this goal requires neighbours committed to peace between Israel and a new Palestinian state — and I’m encouraged by the presence of so many here. Achieving this goal requires the commitment of the international community, including the United States.
“We stand with you, at the Annapolis Conference and beyond,” the president said, offering what he called “a more hopeful vision — of a Middle East growing in freedom and dignity and prosperity. We are here to renew our efforts to achieve this vision.”
Rice praised Olmert and Abbas, saying: “Without your leadership and your courage, we wouldn’t be here tonight. And we look very much forward tomorrow to signalling the international support that is there for the bilateral process that you have begun to try and end your conflict and come to a two-state solution.”
“The United States cannot impose our vision, but we can help facilitate,” Bush told the two leaders earlier at separate Oval Office meetings to kick-start the conference with the ultimate goal of creating a Palestinian State.
Abbas said during his talks with Bush: “We have a great deal of hope that this conference will produce… expanded negotiations over all permanent status issues, that would lead to a comprehensive peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian people, an agreement to secure security and stability.”
A couple of hours earlier, as Bush welcomed Olmert, he too expressed optimism saying: “We are going to have lots of participants in what I hope will launch a serious process of negotiations between us and the Palestinians. This will be a bilateral process, but international support is very important for us.”
The Annapolis conference, he hoped, would produce “something that will be very good and create a great hope for our peoples”.
After formally opening the conference Tuesday morning, Bush leaves it to Rice to push it forward over three plenary sessions in the afternoon. Sibal is also expected to make a statement outlining India’s views on the issue later Tuesday.
Rice has described the conference as important to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in two ways — it solidifies the launch of peace negotiations and it brings together international support, especially from Arab nations. For the United States, the two elements are critical to each other and to achieving success, she said recently.
No one expects an imminent major breakthrough in the long lasting conflict but Israeli and Palestinian officials said they were close to agreement on a document that would outline the peace goals to follow the conference.
Rice worked Monday with the chief negotiators from each side to help work on the document about how to move forward on what are known as “final-status issues” — Jerusalem, borders, security and Palestinian refugees. Both sides were “converging” on a document, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Monday.
Bush’s national security adviser Stephen Hadley has said he expected both sides to recommit to a 2003 “road map” which provides benchmarks that include a cessation of Jewish settlement in the West Bank occupied by Israel in a 1967 war as well as a Palestinian crackdown on militants.