Kerry travels to Ramallah in bid to restart talks
JERUSALEM -- U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry traveled to Ramallah on Friday in a bid to convince Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to accept the terms of a U.S. plan to restart peace talks with Israel.
Kerry, who was hoping to announce a resumption in talks during his sixth trip to the region as secretary, spent much of the day in Amman, Jordan, on the telephone with Israelis and Palestinians, trying to salvage his initiative. He met twice with chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat and then, after some false starts, made an unscheduled helicopter trip to Ramallah.
But so far neither Israelis nor Palestinians have publicly embraced his plan and U.S. officials cautioned that they do not expect to make an announcement about a resumption of talks before Kerry departs for Washington on Friday night. They said Kerry is hoping to return to the region in August to renew his push.
After reviewing the plan Thursday night, Palestinians on Friday said it did not go far enough. In a response to Kerry, they reiterated their demand that Israel agree to use the borders that existed before the 1967 Middle East War as a basis for establishing the border of a future state of Palestine, said Bassam Salhi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee.
Salhi said Kerry’s plan mandated that land swaps be made to allow Israel to keep its major Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank. Though Palestinians have previously discussed mutually-agreed swaps, they say they want the issue to be decided at the negotiating table, not in advance.
“If we accept land swaps now, then we are saying yes to settlements and this is why we rejected the proposal,” he said.
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Special correspondent Maher Abukhater in Ramallah contributed to this report.
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