02 August 2007
Senior US and Israeli diplomats have said they would push for a quick political settlement with Palestinians in the West Bank in spite of the bitter internal split between the Fatah and the Hamas in Gaza. US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and Israel’s foreign minister Tzipi Livni said they would not squander what each called a rare chance for progress in the 60-year-old conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
"Israel is not going to miss this opportunity," Livni said as Rice began her visit to Israel. Referring to the split of the Palestinian territory in Fatah- and Hamas-run regions, Rice said: "Ultimately the Palestinian people have to choose what kind of world they will live in, what kind of state they will have. We do have in the Palestinian territories a government that is devoted to the ... foundational principles for peace, and this is an opportunity that should not be missed," she stated, referring to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas whose Fatah movement controls the West Bank part of the Palestinian Autonomy.
Declaring a "moment of choice" in the Middle East, US president George W. Bush last month said he would call together Israel, the Palestinians and others in the region for an international peace conference. On Wednesday Saudi Arabia signaled it might attend such a meeting. Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said the kingdom, which does not have diplomatic relations with Israel, wants assurances that the meeting would "deal with issues of real substance, not form. Should we then get an invitation to attend, we will look very closely and very hard at attending," the minister said during a news conference with Rice and US defense secretary Robert Gates.
