Kerry calls for new peace talks

(MENAFN- The Peninsula) US Secretary of State John Kerry yesterday called for a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, saying both sides had to be helped to make "tough choices" for lasting stability.

"Ceasefire is not peace," Kerry told a donors' conference here. "We got to get back to the table and help people make tough choices, real choices ... choices about more than just a ceasefire," Kerry said.

He was speaking almost six months after his own bid to strike an elusive peace deal collapsed in April amid bitter recriminations by both sides.

Both Israel and the Palestinians have rejected new talks under old conditions, but Kerry insisted Washington was still ready to have another go.

"I say clearly and with deep conviction here today that the United States remains fully, totally committed to returning to negotiations not for the sake of it but because the goal of this conference and the future of the region demand it."

Washington is committed to a so-called "two-state solution" under which Israel and a future Palestinian state would live side-by-side.

"I don't think there is any person here who wants to come yet again to rebuild Gaza only to think that two years from now, or less, we are going to be back at the same table talking of rebuilding Gaza because the fundamental issues have not been dealt with," Kerry said.

"In the end we all want the same things. Security for the Israelis, freedom, dignity and a state for the Palestinians, peace and prosperity for both peoples."

UN chief Ban Ki-moon also warned that another conflict could erupt. "Gaza remains a tinderbox, the people desperately need to see results in their daily lives," Ban said.

Abbas repeated his calls for an internationally set timeframe for establishing a Palestinian state, telling the global envoys in attendance that the latest conflict had destroyed government institutions in Gaza.

Sisi move

Egypt, the most populous Arab country and which brokered the current ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians in August, used the conference to renew its call for a wider Middle East peace deal based on a 2002 Arab initiative, which Israel has rejected.

"We should turn this moment into a real starting point to achieve a peace that secures stability and flourishing and renders the dream of coexistence a reality, and this is the vision of the Arab peace initiative," Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi said in his opening speech.

The Arab peace initiative was floated by Saudi Arabia at an Arab League summit in Beirut in 2002 and offers full recognition of the Jewish state, but only if it gives up all land seized in the 1967 Middle East war and agrees to a "just solution" for Palestinian refugees.

Also speaking in Cairo, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the 2002 Arab plan could be the framework for a new comprehensive approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Successive Israeli governments have rejected the Arab initiative but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently suggested a greater role for Israel's Arab neighbours in the pursuit of peace.

Later this month Egypt is to mediate indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas militants seeking to turn their open-ended truce into a durable ceasefire. That would be a first step before there could be any talk of restarting the broader peace process.

Israeli caution

Meanwhile, the foreign minister of Israel, which was not invited to the international conference on rebuilding Gaza, said any such effort would need his country's consent. "Gaza cannot be rebuilt without the cooperation and participation of Israel," Avigdor Lieberman said.