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After a day and evening in White House talks with President Barack Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are sitting down together to begin peace talks that could eventually lead to the creation of a Palestinian state. Thursday’s talks are also being attended by Jordan’s King Abdullah and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The BBC’s Kim Ghattas is at the State Department. Download MP3
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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman. This is the World. Israeli and Palestinian leaders sat down in Washington today for their first direct peace talks in 20 months. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton formally opened the talks this morning by praising the Mideast leaders in attendance.
HILLARY CLINTON: By being here today you each have taken an important step toward freeing your people’s from the shackles of a history we cannot change.
WERMAN: Secretary Clinton said it’s now up to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to move toward peace. Later, Netanyahu himself offered these encouraging words.
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: President Abbas, as I said yesterday in our meeting at the White House, I see in you a partner for peace.
WERMAN: The BBC’s Kim Ghattas is at the State Department. Kim, what’s happened today?
KIM GHATTAS: Well we have those initial comments by all three leaders, the Secretary of State, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Palestinian president. We then had Mahmoud Abbas and Benjamin Netanyahu hold an hour-long meeting with Hillary Clinton and George Mitchell. And then, very interesting, the two leaders, Mahmoud Abbas and Benjamin Netanyahu, sat down again alone in Mrs. Clinton’s outer office and then talked for about an hour and a half or so.
WERMAN: Right and at that one-on-one meeting there were no translators or note takers. I’m just wondering how a detail like that makes a difference in this kind of meeting.
GHATTAS: The detail is important perhaps because it allows the two men to simply sit and talk without worrying about what is being written down. They can sit there and open up to each other perhaps and be a little bit more candid, discuss things in private that they believe could help move this process along without fearing that it is going to end up in the media. This administration is quite keen that the negotiations don’t take place under the glare of the media. They believe that that is not helpful because of the reactions it sometimes provokes and what that then does to what the two leaders are willing to do or not do. And George Mitchell, the administration’s peace envoy to the Middle East, made very clear that throughout the talks that we’re going to see take place over the next month or so, sometimes they won’t share very much. And crucially what Mr. Mitchell also announced today after the initial morning talks is that there will be another round of talks in the region around the middle of September and that the two leaders, Mr. Abbas and Mr. Netanyahu, have agreed to meet every two weeks after that as well.
WERMAN: Now, one optimistic note that has been sounded by various parties in Washington at these talks is that some believe that an agreement will be reached in a year. That’s clearly not the same as peace in a year. What will it mean?
GHATTAS: Well, an agreement within a year means that all the core issues at the heart of this conflict, Jerusalem, borders, refugees, security, so many very, very complex, difficult issues are to be resolved within a year. And we heard from Mr. Mitchell, he said that in the immediate future, the next logical step is to have a framework agreement which allows the two sides to flesh out the compromises needed to then reach the final treaty, if you will. As far as we understand, they want to do all of this, the framework agreement and the treaty, within a year. That doesn’t necessarily mean that in a year you’ll have two states, Palestine and Israel. It will mean that you’ll have what it takes to then implement the agreement and have eventually a state. We don’t know, nothing has been said yet, about how long it will then take to implement the agreement.
WERMAN: The BBC’s Kim Ghattas in Washington. Thanks very much for your time, Kim.
GHATTAS: Thank you.
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