OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, Jan 9: US President George W. Bush said on Wednesday he was hopeful of reaching a Middle East peace deal this year, despite continuing violence in Gaza and Israeli settlement activity.
“I’m optimistic about this visit,” Bush told a press conference after talks with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at the start of a landmark tour of the region aimed at bolstering negotiations revived just six weeks ago.
People ask “you think it’s possible during your presidency. The answer is I’m very hopeful,” he said. “It’s a historic opportunity to work for peace.”
When they relaunched the peace process at a US-sponsored conference in late November after a seven-year hiatus, Israel and the Palestinians pledged to aim to seal a peace deal by the end of Bush’s term in January 2009.
His visit comes a day after Olmert and Palestine President Mahmud Abbas agreed to advance the process by starting talks on the most divisive issues in the conflict — borders, settlements, Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees.
But both Bush and Olmert said the Palestinians had to commit to stopping violence against Israel, particularly from Gaza, which has been out of Palestinian Authority control since Hamas took over the territory in June 2007.
Israel and the West have increasingly isolated the impoverished territory as they regard Hamas -- which refuses to recognise Israel -- as a terrorist outfit.
Bush said he would press President Abbas on the issue when he holds talks with him in the West Bank political capital of Ramallah on Thursday.
“As to the rockets my first question is going to be to President Abbas is what do you intend to do about them,” Bush said.
“There has to be a firm commitment by the Palestinian government to deal with extremists and terrorists who might be willing to use Palestinian territory to launch... into Israel.
“You can’t expect the Israelis, and I certainly don’t, to accept a state at their border which will become a launching pad for terrorist activity.”
Olmert said Israel was committed to continuing peace talks but that they would not be able to reach a deal if Gaza militants continued to fire rockets into the Jewish state.
“The Israeli team is absolutely committed to carrying on these negotiations in a very serious manner to deal with all the core issues... to bring about an agreement that will have to be implemented,” Olmert said.
“There will be no peace unless terror is stopped and terror will have to be stopped everywhere,” he said.
“Gaza must be part of the package and as long as there will be terror from Gaza it will be very, very hard to reach any peaceful understanding between us and the Palestinians.” Around 100 people, most of them Palestinian militants, have been killed since the revival of peace talks in November in the US as Israel intensified its military operations on Gaza.
But Bush also told Israel that it had to remove wildcat settlement outposts from the occupied West Bank.
“In terms of outposts, yeah they ought to go. Look, I mean we’ve been talking about it for four years, and the agreement was to get rid of outposts, illegal outposts, and they ought to go.” Peace groups estimate that there are currently more than 100 outposts -- settlements not authorised by the Israeli government -- in the occupied West Bank.
The international community considers all Israeli settlements illegal and the issue has been a key source of discord since the negotiations were re-launched.
“We are going to observe our obligations when it comes to wildcat outposts,” Olmert said. “We’re asking that the Palestinians also respect their obligations to put an end to terror and not only in Gaza.” But Olmert said Israeli settlements in annexed east Jerusalem -- which the Palestinians hope to make the capital of their promised future state -- did not fall in the same category as those in the West Bank.
“We are not going to build new settlements or expropriate land in the occupied territories,” Olmert said. But “occupied Jerusalem as far as we are concerned is not in the same status.”—AFP
