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Obama: We expected too much from Israel, PA

22 January 2010 01:25 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Ziya Agazade â€“ APA. U.S. President Barack Obama in an interview with Time magazine yesterday said his administration had overestimated its ability to convince the parties to the Middle East conflict to return to the negotiating table, APA reports quoting â€œTimesâ€.

"The Middle East peace process has not moved forward," Obama said. "I think itâ€™s fair to say for all our efforts at early engagement, it is not where I want it to be."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met yesterday with Obamaâ€™s Middle East envoy. Details of their talks were not made public but in closed-door meetings Netanyahu has said that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was to blame for the stalled peace process because of the Palestinian leaderâ€™s refusal to come back to the negotiating table.

Netanyahu expressed readiness to resume talks but said the Palestinians had adopted a strategy of refusing to negotiate. He maintains that following Israelâ€™s unilateral 10-month freeze on construction in settlements he would not agree to additional gestures to bring the Palestinians back to peace talks unless the Israeli moves were met by reciprocal Palestinian ones.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said yesterday that Netanyahu had managed to thwart Obamaâ€™s efforts at bringing about a peace agreement. Erekat refused to elaborate on expectations for todayâ€™s meeting between Mitchell and Abbas but rejected recent suggestions that the Americans negotiate with Israel on behalf of the Palestinians.