The ninth round of Middle East peace talks ended this week amid statements of regret that more had not been accomplished in three weeks of intense discussions between Israel and its Arab negotiating partners.
The regrets, at least on the Israeli side, were tempered with a sense that the negotiations had been useful and that the parties had managed, at last, to discuss some issues of substance.
But the Arab parties, notably the Palestinian and Syrian delegation leaders, were blunt in declaring that no progress had been made.
The talks are expected to resume sometime in June.
As the round of talks drew to an end Thursday, the U.S. government, in its role as co-sponsor and self-declared “full partner” of the peace process, was trying a last-ditch effort to get the Israelis and Palestinians to agree on a joint statement.
The Americans, by presenting both sides with an American draft of a joint statement, apparently hoped that if the parties agreed to sign off on it, this round of talks would have ended on a note of progress.
On Wednesday night, American officials invited Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to discuss the document at the State Department. The Israelis attended the meeting, but the Palestinians did not show up.
Palestinian chief negotiator Haidar Abdel-Shafi told reporters Thursday that his delegation did not see any “validity” in going to the State Department “to receive a paper.”
He said that the Palestinian negotiators had since received a copy of the American statement and that they had discussed it with American officials Thursday.
Negotiations on the statement were continuing Thursday at the State Department.
At news conferences Thursday, in separate hotels in downtown Washington, first the Arab delegations and then their Israeli counterparts offered fairly downbeat summaries of the past three weeks.
“It is disconcerting and embarrassing to tell you again that we have made no progress in the ninth round,” Abdel-Shafi told reporters.
Abdel-Shafi said the Palestinians and Israelis disagreed over issues of territorial jurisdiction and the powers of a future elected Palestinian self-governing council.
‘LEAVING HERE WITH MIXED FEELINGS’
Elyakim Rubinstein, the chief Israeli negotiator with the Palestinians, had a less bleak message for reporters. “We are leaving here with mixed feelings,” he said.
On the positive side, Rubinstein said the Israelis welcomed the establishment during this ninth round of working groups that were set up to deal with autonomy, water and land control, and human rights concerns.
But he complained that the working groups’ deliberations were suspended by the Palestinians before having “a chance to achieve enough.”
Overall, he said, “time has not been wasted” because each side now knows where there are gaps in their respective thinking and where bridging the gaps could be possible.
Similarly, in the Israeli-Syrian talks, the Israeli negotiator gave a more positive presentation than his Arab counterpart.
Israel’s chief negotiator with the Syrians, Israeli Ambassador Itamar Rabinovich, said Thursday that he had “mixed emotions” about the progress of the talks.
He said the fact that the two sides were able to pick up virtually where they left off five months ago was a positive sign, since Israel and Syria do not have a history of friendly relations.
Syrian chief negotiator Mowaffak al-Allaf, on the other hand, had few encouraging words.
“There is no progress whatsoever during the ninth round,” he told reporters Thursday.
The Israeli-Syrian track was bogged down throughout the round over definitions of terms.
The Syrians have offered Israel “full peace,” in exchange for a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights. But the Israelis are waiting for the Syrians to delineate what they mean by “full peace” before discussing the territorial concessions they are prepared to make.
On the Israeli-Jordanian track, things seemed to be in something of a holding pattern.
Jordanian negotiator Abdel Salam al-Majali told reporters Thursday that unless there is “good enough progress” on the Palestinian track, it is “unlikely” there will be great progress on the Jordanian track.
“We do not want ever to see the peace cut into small pieces,” Majali said. “It should be comprehensive.”
In the Israeli-Lebanese talks, the two sides debated respective proposals. The Israelis on Thursday presented the Lebanese with a series of questions relating to a Lebanese document given to Israeli negotiators earlier this week.
Earlier in the round, the Israelis had proposed setting up a working group to deal with military issues.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
