Israel-Palestine negotiators’ meeting on saving peace process yields no result

Another meeting of Israeli and Palestinian negotiators on saving the peace process ended early on Monday with no result. It lasted for about five hours with mediation of US State Department representative Martin Indyk, according to Palestinian media reports.

A Palestinian representative said on condition of anonymity that “crisis continues” in the negotiating process. “During the meeting the Israelis were threatening the Palestinians and no solution to the current crisis was been found,” he added.

In the middle of the past week, the peace process entered a critical phase a month before the planned date for the completion of the negotiations. The two sides had resumed the dialogue after a three-year interval on July 29, 2013 and was planned for six months. Ahead of the talks Israel agreed to release in four stages 104 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the Palestinian side’s promise not to take unilateral steps to achieve international recognition of their statehood. However, in late March Israel said it indefinitely postponed the release of a fourth group of Palestinians, comprising 26 people, tying this step to the lack of progress in the negotiations over eight months. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in response on April 1 signed 15 applications for accession to international conventions and pacts, including those coming under the UN jurisdiction. Three days after that Israel said it finally cancelled the final stage of the amnesty. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said at an international conference of the Jerusalem Post newspaper in New York on Sunday that the Palestinians’ unilateral steps for accession to international pacts were “blackmail.” “What happened in the last few days was Palestinian blackmail. We are ready for any kind of discussions, but we're not ready for blackmail.” The foreign minister said that there are currently three options on the table: “The package deal that includes our willingness to free terrorists (amnesty 104 Palestinians) is not an option. The second option is forming a new coalition and the third option is going to elections. I personally don't think we are in a position to back out and return to a package deal and release terrorists.