Rice Meets With Top Mideast Negotiators
03/31/2008
AMMAN, Jordan (AP) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with top Israeli and Palestinian negotiators on Monday then flew to Jordan for a final session with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Jordan before wrapping up a three-day mission intended to reinvogorate Mideast peace talks.
There was no immediate indication from any of the parties what, if anything, came from her separate morning meetings in Jerusalem with former Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.
Talks with the two sides a day earlier produced Israeli promises to ease restrictions in the West Bank.
Rice made no remarks upon her arrival in Amman, but arranged to brief reporters after her meeting with Abbas.
Afterward, she was flying immediately to Ukraine later Monday to meet up with President Bush for a round of meetings with Eastern European leaders prior to the NATO summit later this week.
Abbas and Rice met Sunday in the Jordanian capital, where Rice also saw Jordan's King Abdullah II. The king warned that failure to achieve progress toward peace would "threaten the region's future" and blamed Israel for unilateral actions, according to a statement from his palace.
Rice announced Sunday that Israel will remove about 50 roadblocks and upgrade checkpoints to speed up the movement of Palestinians through the West Bank, while the Palestinians pledged to upgrade security.
The Israelis also will give Palestinians more security responsibility in the town of Jenin and also pledged to increase the number of travel and work permits for Palestinians and to support economic projects in Palestinian towns.
In return, the Palestinians promised to improve policing of Jenin "to provide law and order, and work to prevent terror," according to a State Department statement.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad agreed to what the U.S. termed "concrete steps" at a joint meeting with Rice on Sunday. "We will be monitoring and verifying," Rice said.
Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, and Abbas restarted peace talks at a U.S.-hosted summit last November, after seven years of fighting. Despite the pledge to reach a final deal by year's end, negotiators have made no visible progress.