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West Asia peace talks stalled

Jerusalem: Peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians are stalled and are unlikely to produce a significant agreement within the year, a growing number of voices in the Middle East are warning.

Saab Erekat, a senior Palestinian negotiator, admitted on Wednesday that his side had failed to convince the Palestinians that the current peace process would bring any change on the ground.

At the same time, the International Crisis Group said efforts to isolate Hamas in Gaza were “bankrupt” and had backfired, damaging the credibility of the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is leading the peace talks. “The peace process is at a standstill,” the group said in a report.

Last week, Tony Blair, the envoy of the Quartet of West Asia peacemakers — the European Union, the United Nations, the United States and Russia — admitted that without change on the ground it was unlikely that the negotiations, launched four months ago in Annapolis, Maryland would succeed.

Mr. Erekat said 358 Palestinians had been killed and 1,200 wounded in those four months, with more than 2,000 arrested and 35 houses demolished.

He said 5,378 housing units were under construction in Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and in the West Bank, even though the U.S. road map — the framework for the talks — stipulates that Israel must freeze settlement activity.

“This is what the Palestinians see being done and at a time when we are trying to tell them we are going to make the year 2008 a year of peace,” Mr. Erekat said.

Other senior Palestinian figures have warned that a failure to reach a deal this year might bring the collapse of the Palestinian Authority, which was set up with limited powers after the Oslo accords more than a decade ago.

For now Israeli leaders have, at least in public, sounded more upbeat. “We are optimistic about negotiations, in spite of what you occasionally read,” Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Wednesday. — ©Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008

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