Carter Is Willing to Mediate Mideast Peace Talks if Asked

Former President Carter said Thursday that he was willing to mediate peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians, but only if they and the U.S. government requested it.

“We would go immediately and with great alacrity,” this year’s Nobel peace laureate said in a speech to students at Sweden’s Uppsala University.

However, Carter gave no indication that he had been asked to mediate.

Carter helped broker the 1978 Camp David accords that led to peace between Israel and Egypt. The agreement resulted in the Nobel Peace Prize for Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.

The former president won the prize this year for that effort as well as his other peacemaking work since leaving office in 1981.

Carter said tension between Israelis and Palestinians hasn’t been stemmed and asserted that President Bush was not impartial about the issue.

“Until President Bush, every president, Democratic or Republican, has in my opinion played a balancing role as a trusted mediator,” he said. “Now, though, it seems obvious that the present administration in Washington is completely compatible with the Israeli government and they have completely ignored ... the Palestinian Authority.”

In Jerusalem, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Ron Prosor said Bush should be the one to decide whether Carter should mediate for the United States. He would not comment on Carter’s accusation that Bush is pro-Israel.