PLO agrees to indirect Israeli-Palestinian peace talks

The PLO Executive Committee gave the green light Saturday to indirect Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, but both sides have already expressed deep doubts about whether the U.S.-brokered negotiations will yield results.

U.S. Middle East envoy George J. Mitchell will shuttle between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators over the coming four months, hoping to narrow differences in talks that have been stalled for 18 months.

The “proximity” talks were pushed by the Obama administration because Palestinians refuse to conduct direct negotiations unless Israel agrees to halt settlement construction on land it seized after the 1967 Middle East War, including in East Jerusalem.

The announcement of a 1,600-unit project in March, issued during Vice President Joe Biden’s trip to Israel, derailed the previous start date for proximity talks.

Although Israeli officials insist that they have not agreed to stop or slow housing construction in Jerusalem, Palestinians said Saturday that they had received assurances from the U.S. that Israel would refrain from “provocations.”

“Our decision was based on certain guarantees we received from the U.S., namely that the U.S. will take a firm political position against any provocation that will affect the peace process and the proximity talks,” said Yasser Abed-Rabbo, secretary of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee, during a press briefing in the West Bank city of Ramallah. He said such provocations would include Jewish settlement activities.

Some conservative Israeli politicians say Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has secretly agreed to halt such projects. His office denied those claims.

Even before formal talks begin, both sides have been accusing each other of lacking commitment to the peace process.

“Proximity talks with the Palestinians sounds absurd to me,” opposition Israeli lawmaker Meir Sheetrit told Israel Radio, noting the two sides have had face-to-face talks for decades. “This takes us 30 years back.”

A statement from Hamas, the Palestinian armed group that controls the Gaza Strip, condemned the decision, accusing the rival Palestinian movement Fatah of “caving in to American and Zionist pressure.”

U.S. officials hope the talks will lead to direct negotiations later in the year, tackling key issues such as setting borders and determining the fate of Jerusalem, which both sides claim as their capital.

edmund.sanders@latimes.com

Times correspondent Maher Abukhater in Ramallah contributed to this report.