[NYTr] Olmert: No Timetable, Only Iarael's Continued Crime-table

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Jeffrey Blankfort via Ed Pearl

[So it's over already. No timetable, only Israel's  continued
crimetable. -JB]


Ha'aretz - Dec 2, 2007
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=930253


Olmert: No firm timetable for peace talks with Palestinians

By Haaretz Service and Reuters

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday played down expectations for a peace 
deal with the Palestinians before the end of 2008 as laid out at a 
U.S.-sponsored peace conference last week.

"We will make an effort to hold speedy negotiations in the hope we may 
conclude by the end of 2008, but certainly there is no commitment for a firm 
timetable for their completion," Olmert said at the start of Sunday's 
cabinet meeting.

U.S. President George W. Bush assured Israeli and Palestinian leaders at the 
conference in Annapolis, Maryland, that Washington would actively engage in 
peacemaking, despite deep skepticism over chances for a deal before he 
leaves office.

Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met Bush to launch the first 
formal peace talks in seven years at the conference and agreed to try and 
reach a deal on Palestinian statehood by the end of next year. But, speaking 
at Israel's first cabinet meeting since Annapolis, Olmert urged caution.

In an apparent hint to right-wing coalition partners that he was not 
planning concessions without a reciprocal move from the Palestinians, Olmert 
said any progress in the peace process would depend on adhering to 
commitments under a long-stalled U.S. peace "road map."

"The most important thing in the joint statement is that ... any agreement 
that we reach in the future will be dependent on completion of all road map 
commitments.

"In other words, Israel will not have to implement any commitment which 
emanates from the agreement before all the road map commitments have been 
met," he said.

The 2003 U.S. road map provides benchmarks that include a Palestinian 
crackdown on terrorism, as well as a freeze of Israeli settlement activity 
in the West Bank.

Stressing the Palestinian obligation to act against militants, the prime 
minister said of the road map: "I think that this is very important and 
assures the security component, which is - in our view, and in any 
eventuality and under any condition - the most important issue that we are 
dealing with."

Olmert's comments came after the United States withdrew a draft United 
Nations resolution endorsing action agreed at Annapolis - a document Israeli 
officials said they felt was inappropriate.

Although Israel apparently had no problems with the uncontroversial text, 
analysts suggested it was worried a formal resolution would get the UN too 
involved in Middle East peace efforts.

Skeptics say Bush's time scale for peacemaking is too ambitious, especially 
given both Olmert and Abbas are politically weak.

The prime minister's popularity has been hurt by corruption allegations and 
last year's Second Lebanon war, and faces resistance to concessions from 
some right-wing members of his coalition.

Abbas' Fatah movement was ousted from the Gaza Strip by Hamas in June.