Rice names advisor on Mideast talks

A day after Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed to start peace talks, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday named a high-level advisor to help guide the Bush administration through thorny security issues that could hobble the negotiations.

Retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones, a former NATO commander and a 40-year military veteran, will serve as a special envoy to deal with a broad range of Palestinian and Israeli security issues.

“Building security in the Middle East is the surest path to making peace in the Middle East and Gen. Jones is the best individual to lead our efforts in this essential endeavor,” Rice said in an appearance with Jones at the State Department.

Jones will not have a direct role in the multitrack negotiations, U.S. officials said, but will advise Rice on questions that will inevitably come up in the talks, such as how Palestinian forces can step up their role in the West Bank as Israeli forces reduce theirs. His job will be limited to security matters.

Jones will not replace Army Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, who has been trying since early 2005 to help the Palestinians better organize their security services. Rice remains “100%” satisfied with Dayton, said a State Department official, and is adding Jones to gain a broader strategic perspective.

The official declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the subject.

The issue of security could quickly stall the negotiations.

Israel was supposed to reduce its military presence in the West Bank during the first stage of a 2003 U.S.-backed plan known as the “road map,” which also obliges the Palestinian Authority to begin disarming militias that attack Israel.

Neither side complied with the plan. But both agreed Tuesday to abide by it in order to improve the climate for talks on the big issues -- the borders of a Palestinian state, the status of Jerusalem, claimed by both as their capital, and the fate of Palestinian refugees who fled their homes during Israel’s 1948 war of independence.

Israel remains reluctant to pull back from the West Bank, which it has occupied for 40 years and where it has 122 settlements, until it is convinced that the Palestinian Authority has a capable and trustworthy security force in place.

The government of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has had limited success strengthening its forces and making them more professional, in part because Israel is reluctant to allow the Palestinians to have guns and other military equipment it fears could be misused. The U.S. Congress, strongly pro-Israel, has been slow to provide funding for equipment for the Palestinian forces.

Jones, a former Marine commandant, was the senior military aide to former Defense Secretary William S. Cohen. He served as the supreme commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization from 2003 to 2006. This summer, he headed a committee that advised Congress on the readiness of Iraqi security forces.

His appointment came a day after a landmark international gathering at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., where Israeli and Palestinian leaders and representatives of dozens of other countries and groups launched a new phase of peace talks they hope will culminate in a peace agreement by the end of next year.

Besides providing guidance for Rice, Jones’ appointment also was meant to demonstrate Washington’s willingness to follow up on Tuesday’s conference. International diplomatic observers have urged stepped-up U.S. engagement as a crucial ingredient to any Mideast deal.

However, Bush, who has not visited Israel or the Palestinian territories as president, scoffed at suggestions that he intensify his personal involvement by traveling to the region to persuade the two sides to accept difficult compromises.

“Going to a region in itself is not going to unstick negotiations,” Bush said in an interview with CNN. “This idea that somehow you are supposed to travel and therefore good things are going to happen is just not realistic.”

The president said the United States, while determined to encourage the parties, couldn’t “dictate the results” of the negotiations. He declined to say how far the United States would go in trying to keep the negotiations going.

“It depends on the circumstances,” he said.

Bush followed up on the Annapolis gathering by meeting with Olmert and Abbas at the White House on Wednesday afternoon. The three appeared briefly before reporters in the Rose Garden, to reiterate their determination to move ahead in the negotiations.

“Yesterday was an important day, and it was a hopeful beginning,” Bush said. “No matter how important yesterday was, it’s not nearly as important as tomorrow and the days beyond.”

Bush has come under criticism for limiting the American role in negotiations and for declining to put pressure on both sides to reach an agreement.

But Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Bush was correct that it was preferable that the two sides make their own decisions rather than be pushed by the superpower.

Israelis and Palestinians “are masters at waiting not to do things” and tend even more to avoid hard choices when a third party is involved, he said in an appearance sponsored by the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center. “It’s time for decisions -- Palestinian and Israeli, our decisions. Nobody can make them for us.”

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paul.richter@latimes.com

Times staff writer Richard Boudreaux contributed to this report.