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Talks On Tap As Bush Departs For Mideast

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By RICHARD BOUDREAUX, Los Angeles Times

Published: January 9, 2008

JERUSALEM - As President Bush headed to the Middle East to check on their peace talks, Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed Tuesday to launch them in earnest, six weeks late.

It was that long ago that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas stood beside Bush at an international conference in Annapolis, Md., and announced the start of full-scale negotiations with the aim of creating a Palestinian state by the end of 2008.

But the promised effort, a priority on Bush's waning agenda and a focus of his eight-day visit to the region starting here today, has been stalled by a quarrel over newly planned Jewish housing construction since the two sides' negotiators first met Dec. 12.

The Palestinians, taken aback by revelations of such plans in East Jerusalem and the West Bank land they seek for their state, have refused for weeks to tackle other issues.

Prodded by the Bush administration, Olmert responded last month by ordering Cabinet ministers to seek his approval before authorizing new construction work in the West Bank, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East War. His order did not fully satisfy the Palestinians because it did not halt projects in progress and did not apply to East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed in 1967.

Abbas nonetheless agreed Tuesday, in a two-hour meeting at Olmert's residence in Jerusalem, to end the deadlock and start grappling with core issues of the decades-old conflict. Those include the borders of a Palestinian state, the status of refugees who fled homes in Israel and conflicting claims over Jerusalem - issues the two sides last addressed seven years ago.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said negotiating teams led by Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and former Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmad Qureia could begin work on those issues next week.

The teams will try to resolve immediate disputes, such as the one over Jewish settlements, on a separate track, Regev said, and Olmert and Abbas will meet every two weeks to review their work.

Before leaving Washington late Tuesday, Bush said he would encourage the Israelis and Palestinians to make "tough decisions on complex questions."

But U.S. national security adviser Stephen Hadley said he did not expect major breakthroughs.

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