Summary Negotiators agreed Tuesday to meet again within two weeks to start substantive negotiations.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Israeli and Palestinian negotiators agreed Tuesday to meet again within two weeks to start substantive negotiations on a so-far elusive peace deal with the goal of reaching a deal within nine months, Secretary of State John Kerry said.
Speaking as the two sides wrapped up an initial two days of talks at the State Department after paying a visit to President Barack Obama at the White House, Kerry said Israel and the Palestinians were committed to "sustained, continuous and substantive negotiations on the core issues" that divide them. He said the next round of negotiations would take place in either Israel or the Palestinian territories at an as yet-unspecified date before mid-August.
Kerry said he was aware of the deep skepticism surrounding the new push for peace and acknowledged that the road ahead would be difficult. Yet, he said he was hopeful an agreement could be reached. "While I understand the skepticism, I don t share it. And I don t think we have time for it," he said.
Kerry said the negotiations, to be mediated on a day-to-day basis by his new Mideast peace envoy, Martin Indyk, would be cloaked in secrecy and that the parties had agreed that he would be the only person to comment on them. He quickly added that he would not comment on them, leaving unclear the framework for the talks that he struggled for six months to get back on track.
Earlier Tuesday, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden met with the lead negotiators Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat for about 30 minutes. White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama called the meeting to "directly express his personal support for final status negotiations." Obama pledged full US support to the process, Carney said.
At the State Department ceremony, Kerry was flanked by Livni and Erekat who each spoke briefly about the need to resolve the long-standing conflict.
"It s time for the Palestinian people to have an independent sovereign state of their own," said Erekat, who spoke first. "It s time for the Palestinians to live in peace, freedom and dignity within their own independent, sovereign state."
Livni allowed that she and Erekat had been involved in failed negotiations before, notably the Annapolis Process that former President George W. Bush initiated in 2008, but she said this time could be different.
"You know, Saeb," she said to Erekat, "we all spent some time in the negotiations room ... but we didn t complete our mission. And this is something that we need to do now, in these negotiations that we will launch today. And the opportunity has been created for us, for all of us, and we cannot afford to waste it."
"I believe that history is not made by cynics; it is made by realists who are not afraid to dream," Livni added. "Let us be these people."
