In a bit of last-minute diplomacy, President Bush called the leaders of Israel, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority yesterday to discuss details of the U.S. peace conference set to begin in Annapolis next week, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the goal is to wrap up a peace deal to produce a Palestinian state by the time Bush leaves office.
"The parties have said they are going to make efforts to conclude it in this president's term, and it's no secret that means about a year," Rice said. "That's what we'll try and do. Nobody can guarantee that -- all you can do is make your best effort."
With just four days until delegations are expected to arrive, the Bush administration is still engaged in intense efforts to ensure that the key countries will indeed send top officials to the first Middle East peace conference since the 2000 Camp David talks. U.S. and Arab officials said the Arab League meeting in Egypt today and tomorrow will be pivotal in determining the level of participation.
Saudi Arabia and Syria, central players in the Arab-Israeli peace process, are not expected to respond to the U.S. invitation until after the Cairo summit. "The whole situation will be reviewed, and we will see the cost and the benefit," Arab League official Hesham Youssef told the Associated Press in Cairo. "But certainly it is an opportunity, and we hope that Israel will be committed this time."
In two sessions with reporters yesterday, Rice said that the wider Arab world needs to be engaged "early and often" to give confidence to Israel that when a Palestinian state becomes a reality, the wider Arab-Israeli conflict will end.
Rice also noted that the objectives underlying the Annapolis talks will be a Palestinian state and security for Israel but that participants are free to bring up other topics relevant to a comprehensive Middle East peace -- a reference to Arab interest in eventually widening this peace effort to include Syria and Lebanon. "If people want to address other tracks or talk about them, they're certainly not going to be ruled out of order," she said.
Rice acknowledged that the United States has no guarantees of success but said that she intends to play a high-profile role in getting the parties to work on implementing the first steps while also continuing talks about final-status issues such as Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees, borders and security. "I'll do what I need to do," she said.
America's top diplomat acknowledged that a serious new peace effort could spark new terrorist attacks intended to sabotage it. "I don't doubt that there may be those who try to disrupt progress and peaceful resolution. You see it every time there's some step forward on many of the conflicts in the Middle East these days," she told reporters.
After his call to Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah on Tuesday, Bush called President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday to discuss the U.S.-brokered conference, to which nearly 50 parties have been invited.
Former British prime minister Tony Blair, who is now the special Middle East envoy, arrived in Saudi Arabia yesterday for talks with Abdullah about both the conference and a planned donors conference for the Palestinian Authority. Blair held talks yesterday in Cairo with Mubarak.
The latest U.S. peace effort is winning bipartisan endorsement. Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) issued a statement yesterday saying that he "strongly" supports the Annapolis meeting but cautioned about the dangers of failure. "It presents a real opportunity for progress -- but if it's a one shot deal, it won't work. The Middle East peace process needs the sort of sustained day-in-day-out engagement at the highest levels that this Administration has thus far, shown little interest in or aptitude for," Biden's statement said. "This conference will only be meaningful if it is the start of a continued effort, not the end of one."
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