JERUSALEM Israels prime minister spelled out his opening position for the new round of Mideast peace talks set to begin next week, insisting Sunday on key security conditions and saying an agreement would be difficult but possible.
Benjamin Netanyahu said a future Palestinian state would have to be demilitarized, recognize Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people and respect Israels vital security interests. Some of his demands have already been rejected by the Palestinians.
We come to the talks with a genuine desire to reach a peace agreement between the two peoples, while protecting Israels national interests, chiefly security, Netanyahu told his Cabinet.
His comments were his first since U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced Friday that the sides would resume direct talks at a summit in Washington next week.
Achieving a peace agreement between us and the Palestinian Authority is difficult but possible, he said.
We are talking about a peace agreement between Israel and a demilitarized Palestinian state, and this state, if it is established at the end of the process ... is meant to end the conflict and not to be a foundation for its continuation by other means, Netanyahu said.
He did not elaborate on any additional security demands, but in the past he has said that Israel would have to maintain a presence along the West Banks border with Jordan to prevent arms smuggling. The Palestinians, who claim all of the West Bank as part of their future state, reject any Israeli presence.
In addition, he said, the Palestinians must recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people just as Israel would recognize the Palestinian state as that of the Palestinian people.
The Palestinians recognize Israels right to exist, but refuse to take a stand on the nature of the country. They say that recognizing Israel as the Jewish state could prejudice the rights of Israels Arab minority and compromise the right of Palestinian refugees to return to homes vacated in the fighting around Israels establishment in 1948.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Netanyahus comments were dictation, not negotiation.
If he wants negotiations, he knows that these conditions wont stand, Erekat said.
The comments indicated just how much work lies ahead for President Barack Obama, who hopes to resolve one of the worlds most intractable conflicts within a year.
The Western-backed Palestinian government in the West Bank, wary of engaging with Netanyahus hard-line government, has resisted entering direct peace talks, which they fear wont be productive. Fridays announcement came after months of American diplomatic efforts to get the sides talking again.
The Palestinians want a commitment from Netanyahu that he will allow them to form a state that includes virtually all of the West Bank and east Jerusalem, areas captured in the 1967 Mideast war.
Netanyahu has refused to signal whether he is prepared for a broad withdrawal from the West Bank, and has said that east Jerusalem must remain Israeli.
The new talks could also sharpen the differences in Netanyahus fractious ruling coalition. Some analysts have suggested they could potentially force the prime minister to change its makeup to exclude some of the more hard-line members in favor of moderates like his rivals from the opposition Kadima party.
In a key test, an Israeli slowdown on settlement construction in the West Bank is set to expire next month, and some of the coalitions hawkish members have said the governments stability will be threatened if Israeli construction in the West Bank does not resume in full.
If you start negotiations, unconditional negotiations, one cannot accept a condition that the freeze should continue, Cabinet Minister Uzi Landau of the hard-line Yisrael Beitenu said Sunday.
Erekat, the Palestinian negotiator, said that if the slowdown ends, Israel will have closed the door to negotiation.
In the West Bank, papers greeted the new talks with pessimism. Direct talks destined for failure before being launched because of Israeli hardening on continuation of settlement building, read a headline Sunday in the daily Al-Ayam, which is closely linked to the Palestinian government.
In Israel, the news of the renewal of peace talks was greeted with scant interest. One leading daily paper, Maariv, mentioned it Sunday only on page 10.
One commentator, Nahum Barnea of the daily Yediot Ahronot, wrote that after 17 years of peace talks interspersed with violence Israelis had little optimism left.
Weve seen that movie. Weve seen it again and again and again. It is hard to believe that this time it is going to have a happy end, he wrote.
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