Rice Presses Mideast Rivals To Resume Talks

RAMALLAH, West Bank — The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, declared today that “peace and negotiations are our strategic choice” but fell short of announcing a resumption of peace talks that his government cut off after an upsurge in fighting between Israel and Hamas-ruled Gaza.“I call on the Israeli government to halt its aggression so the necessary environment can be created to make negotiations succeed, for us and for them, to reach the shores of peace in 2008,” Mr. Abbas said. He was referring to the goal — stated at an American-sponsored Middle East peace conference in November — of reaching an Israeli-Palestinian Arab peace treaty by the end of the year.Mr. Abbas made his comments in a joint news conference here with Secretary of State Rice.For her part, Ms. Rice said: “What we are trying to achieve is not easy … but I do believe it can be done. We need very much for everybody to be focused on peace.”Referring to the opponents of peace, she said, “We won’t let them win.”Ms. Rice also said that Israel should make “a very strong effort to spare innocent life” in Gaza.Earlier, Ms. Rice said that walking away from talks plays into the hands of militants, and she blamed Hamas radicals for provoking an Israeli military onslaught in the Gaza Strip. The campaign has derailed an already troubled American-backed drive for peace terms this year.“Negotiations are going to have to be able to withstand the efforts of rejectionists to upset them, to create chaos and violence, so that people react by deciding not to negotiate,” Ms. Rice said in Egypt at the start of two days of efforts to rescue negotiations. “That’s the game of those who don’t want to see a Palestinian state established.”The moderate, American-backed Palestinian Arab leadership in the West Bank suspended peace talks in protest after an Israeli military offensive that killed more than 100 Palestinian Arabs in Gaza. That made restoring two-way talks Ms. Rice’s chief objective for a trip she had planned to check up on the negotiators’ progress.Israel launched the offensive to stop rocket attacks by the Hamas terrorists groups on nearby Israeli cities, but the assault prompted Ms. Abbas to suspend negotiations. Israeli aircraft sent more missiles crashing into Gaza today after more rockets were fired on the southern town of Sderot.“The people who are firing rockets do not want peace,” Ms. Rice told reporters in Cairo. “They sow instability, that is what Hamas is doing.”Ms. Rice backed Israel’s right to respond to the rocket fire, but said it must avoid causing civilian casualties.“The rocket attacks against innocent Israelis in their cities need to stop. This can’t go on. No Israeli government can tolerate that,” she said. But the Israelis “need to be aware of the effects of these operations on innocent people.”She said Hamas, which took over the Gaza Strip last July, is armed “in part” by Iran and underlined the need for America and the West to train and develop the Palestinian Arab security forces loyal to Mr. Abbas, whose government controls the West Bank.“Hamas gets armed by the Iranians and if nobody helps to improve the security capabilities of the legitimate Palestinian Authority security forces. That’s not a very good situation,” she said at a news conference with the foreign minister of Egyptian, Ahmed Aboul Gheit.Ms. Rice said she still thinks the two sides can reach a deal for Palestinian Arab statehood this year.“I do think that negotiations ought to resume as soon as possible,” Ms. Rice told reporters yesterday on her way to the Middle East. “I understand that the situation has been complicated. But the longer the negotiations are not ongoing or the longer that they are suspended, if that’s what one wants to call it, the more it is a victory for those who don’t want to see a two-state solution.”

Rice Presses Mideast Rivals To Resume Talks

Rice Presses Mideast Rivals To Resume Talks

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