Jordan hosts Palestinians, Israelis in rare meeting

AMMAN, Jordan - Israeli and Palestinian negotiators gather in the Jordanian capital on Tuesday for their first face-to-face meeting in 16 months, but both sides insisted full-blown talks remained some way off.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, who was to host the meeting between Israel's chief negotiator Yitzhak Molcho and his Palestinian counterpart Saeb Erakat, said it was a "serious" bid to help relaunch moribund peace talks.

"We do not want to raise expectations, but holding the meetings between the Palestinians and Israelis is a Jordanian interest first and foremost," Judeh said, quoted by the government-owned Jordan Times newspaper.

"Our objective is to bring them together and try to push for a breakthrough in the peace talks," he said.

'Last-minute effort'

The chief Palestinian peace negotiator has said his first meeting with Israelis in more than a year will be a last-ditch effort to salvage the peace process and warned that the Palestinians would explore alternatives if no progress was made.

Saeb Erakat said he was holding out hope for Tuesday's meeting in Jordan, but acknowledged his expectations were low as he reiterated his long-standing demand for an Israeli freeze on settlement construction. Without a breakthrough, he warned, the Palestinians will be forced to examine alternatives to peace talks at the end of the month. Those could include again trying for recognition at the UN.

"The Jordanian efforts are the last-minute efforts to salvage the situation," Erekat warned.

Erakat is set to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's peace envoy, Yitzhak Molcho, at Tuesday's meeting. It is the first time the sides are meeting since negotiations collapsed in September 2010.

Officials say the meeting is not a formal negotiating session. Instead, it is aimed at finding enough common ground to resume negotiations.

The meeting is taking place under the auspices of the Quartet, an international group that mediates Middle East peace efforts. The Quartet, consisting of the US, European Union, Russia and the United Nations, has been trying to revive talks for months with the goal of forging a peace deal by the end of this year.

Positive development

Quartet envoy Tony Blair was also to attend the session in Amman, along with other officials of the group.

"It is a serious effort to find a common ground between the two sides and help restart direct peace talks," said Jordanian foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Kayed, whose country has a 1994 peace treaty with Israel.

Top Israeli cabinet minister Dan Meridor, who holds the intelligence portfolio and is also deputy prime minister, told public radio that the meeting is "a positive development".

He said the meeting did not in itself constitute a return to direct talks, but expressed hope it would be a springboard which would "allow the Palestinians to return to negotiations."

"We were not asked to make declarations at the preliminary talks," he said, indicating that only in the context of actual negotiations would Israel lay out its positions.

Erakat made the same point in an interview with Voice of Palestine radio.

"This meeting will be devoted to discussing the possibility of making a breakthrough that could lead to the resumption of negotiations. Therefore, it will not mark the resumption of negotiations," he said.

He told reporters in the West Bank town of Ramallah that Israel should not waste the rare opportunity of a face-to-face meeting.

"This is a valuable opportunity for peace, and Israel shouldn't waste it and once again be the reason for the failure of efforts by the international community, by the Quartet and by Jordan, to resume the negotiations," he said.

AFP-AP