US Secretary of State Colin Powell, host of the high-level talks, was alone in favouring a postponement until after Israeli elections scheduled for Jan 28.
But the informal group works by consensus and the United States was expected to have its way because of its unique influence over Israel, which requested the postponement.
The mediators — Powell, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and three European Union leaders — have been working for months on a peace plan known as the “road map”, which lays out the steps Israelis and Palestinians must take to put peace talks back on track.
The plan ends in the creation of an independent Palestinian state, possibly in 2005, but the two sides have never agreed on who must take the first steps to break the current stalemate.
Arab and European governments and the Palestinians have argued that Israelis should have a chance to vote next month on a known peace plan, even at the risk they will reject it.
“It’s very important that the voters of Israel know what the world thinks about the situation. I think that being an enlightened voter means that you also have the information on which you build your vote,” one of the European Union leaders, Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller, said this week.
But a US official said on Friday that injecting a peace plan into the Israeli election campaign was a bad idea.
“If you are entering a phase where there are likely to be difficulties by one side or the other, then it would add a degree of difficulty that the process doesn’t need,” said the official.
“With the climate in both communities the way it is, we’re facing a collapse of confidence at this time. There’s a chance it might be rejected and where does that get you?” he added.
The United States has also linked progress with an end to Palestinian attacks on Israelis and a change in the Palestinian leadership — diplomatic code for the removal or demotion of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
The Europeans say that the Israelis can also help break the deadlock, for example by stopping Jewish settlement activity in Palestinian areas.
“The way the settlements are now growing means that you will end up with a Palestinian state looking like a Swiss cheese — a lot of holes. So if you are going to have this vision with two viable states, then you also have to make the Palestinian state viable,” Moeller said.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, writing in The New York Times on Friday, said the Jewish settlements were making a two-state solution impossible.
“This map (the Quartet’s road map) will lead nowhere unless it stops Israel’s ongoing land grabs,” he said.
After talks at the State Department, the mediators will go to the White House to see US President George W. Bush.
The other European Union leaders are foreign policy chief Javier Solana and External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten.—Reuters
US PRESIDENT George Bush said on Friday that he was “strongly committed” to implementing the “roadmap” to Middle East peace, even though Washington wants it delayed until after Israeli elections.
“The roadmap is not complete yet, but the United States is committed to its completion, we are committed to its implementation in the name of peace,” he said during a meeting with Russian and European leaders and UN chief Kofi Annan.—AFP