Israel FM says no chance of Palestinian state by 2012
Steve Weizman
JERUSALEM, Steve Weizman - Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told his Russian counterpart on Tuesday that he saw no chance of meeting international aspirations for Palestinian statehood within 18 months.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian president said he had made proposals regarding final borders and security arrangements and received no Israeli response, adding that he was committed to reaching a peace deal "as soon as possible."
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman (left) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
"The reality is that we are still far from reaching understandings and agreements on the founding of an independent Palestinian state," he said at a press conference with visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
The Middle East Quartet (Russia, the United States, the United Nations and the European Union) called during a March meeting in Moscow for a peace agreement within 24 months, leading to a two-state solution
Lavrov later insisted the Quartet still had that timetable in mind, speaking after talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the occupied West Bank.
"In Moscow the Quartet affirmed that it would exert every effort to resolve the Palestinian issue within two years, and we still hold that position," he said.
Israel and the Palestinians entered into indirect US-mediated talks in May after Washington struggled for months to relaunch the peace process, which was suspended during the devastating 2008-2009 Gaza war.
Abbas said he had passed on Palestinian demands regarding borders and security to Israel through US Middle East envoy George Mitchell, who has been engaged in months of shuttle diplomacy and returned to the region on Tuesday.
"The Palestinian side is ready to go into direct negotiations as soon as there is any progress on the issues of security and borders," Abbas said.
"We have given our ideas and opinions regarding both questions to the American side," he said, adding that Israel had yet to respond.
"We believe in the peace process and in the necessity of achieving peace as soon as possible ... We will exert every effort to arrive at this solution, because time is not on anyone's side."
At both press conferences Lavrov said he hoped the indirect talks would soon be upgraded to direct negotiations and called on Israel to completely lift its four-year blockade on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.
Alone among the Quartet members, Russia openly holds political contacts with the Islamist Hamas, which is blacklisted as a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and the European Union.
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