President Bush opens a high-stakes Israeli-Palestinian peace conference, trying to achieve in his final 14 months in office a goal that has eluded US leaders for decades.
The conference aims to broker peace between Palestine and Israel but a breakthrough is unlikely
MARYLAND: President George W Bush opens a high-stakes Israeli-Palestinian peace conference on Tuesday, trying to achieve in his final 14 months in office a goal that has eluded US leaders for decades.
The talks are aimed at jump-starting negotiations for creating a Palestinian state. But no one expects a swift breakthrough between the two sides, led by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Expressing optimism, Bush saw the two main players separately at the White House on Monday to nudge them closer to agreement on the conference centrepiece, a joint document or ‘work plan’ on new talks.
But even with Bush’s efforts, including a pep talk to all participants at a State Department dinner, and those of Secretary of State Condolezza Rice, who held last-minute talks on Monday with Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, the two sides had not yet bridged the gaps, officials said.
“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,” Bush said.
“Achieving this goal requires difficult compromises, and the Israelis and Palestinians have elected leaders committed to making them.”
Hoping to salvage a foreign policy legacy likely to be dominated by the unpopular Iraq war, Bush will address the one-day conference in Annapolis, Maryland, attended by more than 40 states, including Saudi Arabia, Syria and other Arab powers.
Like the US, many participants are driven by the desire to offset the growing influence of non-Arab Iran — an opponent of peace with the Jewish state. A Palestinian official said, Abbas would stress that the meeting was a unique opportunity for peace, which he hoped could be achieved before Bush leaves office.
The meeting includes a session on the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since 1967 and which Damascus hopes to regain.
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