Army Radio: Gov't confirms Israel, PA to draft peace proposal

By JPOST STAFF AND AP
Jun 7, 2008

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Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have agreed to start drafting elements of a proposed peace accord, government sources confirmed to Army Radio on Saturday.

The Jerusalem Post could not independently confirm the report.

The report comes hours after Ahmed Qurei, the veteran negotiator heading the Palestinian team, announced that such a decision was made. Qurei made it clear, however, that it was not necessarily reflective of an agreement on major issues. Government officials reinforced this sentiment, telling Army Radio that the core issues - such as the status of Jerusalem, refugees, and borders - remain unresolved. Regardless, this would be the first time since negotiations resumed more than six months ago that anything would be committed to paper.

"We agreed with the Israelis to begin writing the positions," Qurei told reporters late Friday.

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Qurei did not explain why the two sides had agreed at this point to begin drafting a text.
The head Palestinian negotiator did not say what issue the two sides would start with. If they reach agreement on any issue, then they will draft a single provision, he said. If not, they will lay out on paper their divergent views, he added.

Israel and the Palestinians resumed peace talks in late November under US prodding. Continued settlement construction and Israeli security concerns have clouded negotiations, and both sides have expressed doubt about achieving the declared goal of clinching a final accord by the end of the year.

Despite the announcement that negotiators would begin drafting their initial positions, Qurei said on Saturday that Israel hadn't done enough to ease the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank, even though it had pledged to alleviate some travel restrictions as a part of peace talks.

"The checkpoints should have been removed after the Annapolis conference," Qurei told reporters while standing at a major checkpoint outside the northern West Bank town of Nablus, refering to a Middle East peace conference that took place in November.

A UN report in May said that the number of Israeli obstacles in the West Bank increased from 566 in September to 607 in April.

Qurei confirmed that Israeli peace negotiators had offered the Palestinians land in exchange for territory where major West Bank settlements lie, but he termed their offer "unacceptable."
Palestinians would like to incorporate all of the West Bank into a future state, but their president, Mahmoud Abbas, has acknowledged that Israel, with US backing, likely will hold on to blocs where tens of thousands of settlers live. In exchange, Abbas is prepared to relinquish some West Bank land for an equal amount of Israeli land.

Qurei would not say how much territory Israel offered, where it lay or how much West Bank land the Jewish state proposed to keep under a final peace accord with the Palestinians.
"The Israelis presented a land swap offer, but this offer is unacceptable to us," he said.
Other Palestinian officials have said Israel has presented maps giving it 10 percent of the West Bank in exchange for southern Israeli territory near the Gaza Strip.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit Jerusalem and Ramallah next week and meet senior negotiators to push the process forward, her office said. Previous visits by Rice have led to little progress on negotiations.

Qurei said negotiations were "going through a difficult period," because of tense discussions over the future of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees, both hotly contested issues on both sides.