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U.S. looking for way forward in Mideast peace talks

03 April 2014 01:54 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Washington said on Wednesday it was endeavoring to put Israel-Palestinian peace negotiations back on track despite recent "unhelpful, unilateral actions" by both sides, APA reports quoting Reuters. A surprise decision by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday to sign more than a dozen international conventions that could give Palestinians greater leverage against Israel left the United States searching for a way to keep the talks going past an April 29 deadline.

"We are disappointed by the unhelpful, unilateral actions that both parties have taken in recent days," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters aboard Air Force One as President Barack Obama headed to Michigan.

He said Secretary of State John Kerry was "in close touch with our negotiating team, which remains on the ground in the region to continue discussions with the parties". Israeli and Palestinian negotiators were due to meet later in the day with U.S. envoy Martin Indyk, according to sources familiar with the talks. The Palestinians had handed over to a U.N. representative and other diplomats applications to join 15 international conventions. They include the Geneva Conventions, the key text of international law on the conduct of war and occupation.

A senior Palestinian official, voicing frustration exacerbated by Israel's failure to carry out a pledged release of several dozen Palestinian prisoners, said on Wednesday that the eight-month-old talks had become merely "negotiating about negotiating". Palestinian officials said Israel's failure to free the prisoners meant Abbas was no longer bound to a commitment not to confront it at the United Nations and other international bodies. The developments further complicated efforts by Kerry to piece together a three-way deal to push the faltering negotiations into 2015.

The talks were already in trouble over the issues of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, land captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East War, and Palestinian opposition to Netanyahu's demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Israel had said it first wanted a Palestinian commitment to negotiate past the original target date for a deal before freeing the last of the 104 prisoners it promised to release as part of U.S. efforts to restart the negotiations last July.