Clinton warns time short to win peace

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sought to inject urgency Friday into Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, warning that the negotiations might be "the last chance for a very long time" to reach an agreement.

In an unusual joint interview with Israeli and Palestinian television broadcasters a day after she presided over the start of the first direct talks in two years, Clinton said the rise of Iranian-backed extremist ideology in the Middle East is a major reason time is short.

Iran's suspected nuclear ambitions have surfaced as a new motivating factor for a Mideast resolution. There have been growing warnings by Israel that it might take military steps to blunt Iran's nuclear program, and even some of Israel's Arab neighbors have shown concerns.

The Obama administration believes that a successful Mideast peace deal would limit Iran's ability to use Mideast tensions to justify its behavior.

"I think that time is not on the side of either Israeli or Palestinian aspirations for security, peace, and a state," Clinton said. Iranian-sponsored "rejectionist ideology" and a "commitment to violence" by those opposed to peace make reaching an agreement quickly all the more necessary, she said.

Shortly before her interview, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed the talks, saying "the fate of Palestine will be decided in Palestine and through resistance and not in Washington."

Iran supports the Palestinian extremist group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip; Gaza along with the West Bank is supposed to form an eventual Palestinian state. Hamas also rejected the talks this week.

The Obama administration wants a peace deal concluded within a year, and both sides pledged Thursday to try to meet that goal.

Despite early positive signals from Israeli and Palestinian leaders, hopes for a deal rest on overcoming significant obstacles and decades of hostility and suspicion.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will meet for a second round of talks in Egypt on Sept. 14 and 15 and thereafter about every two weeks, while lower-level negotiations continue on working out specifics of compromises that both sides will have to make.

After meeting in Egypt, Netanyahu and Abbas are likely to see each other, as well as President Obama, again on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly session in the third week of September.

The talks will face their first tough test shortly after the U.N. gathering, when an Israeli freeze on settlement activity in the West Bank is due to expire. The Palestinians have threatened to walk out of the talks if the freeze is not extended. The Israelis have said the freeze will be allowed to expire Sept. 26.

"The Israelis think that it will be difficult to extend the moratorium, while this issue is very important for us," Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said. "It's a make it or break it."

Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to the United States, allowed that the freeze was "a major hurdle." He said negotiators were "very intensely" discussing the matter but urged the Palestinians not to use it as a way of scuttling the talks.

"The Palestinians shouldn't cherry-pick one issue and make it a condition," he said. He added that Israel was willing to discuss settlements in their entirety as "a core issue" in the talks.

U.S. officials have said the way forward must be handled by the parties themselves, but they have made it no secret they would like the moratorium to continue in some form.

Netanyahu arrived home from Washington at midday Friday. He did not speak to reporters. In Washington, he talked of creating a Palestinian state, a phrase he uttered for the first time just last year after strident opposition to the concept for two decades, and called for "mutual and painful concessions from both sides."

Most Israeli analysts admitted to not knowing what was really on Netanyahu's mind. Veteran Yediot Ahronot columnist Nahum Barnea was uncharacteristically ambivalent.

"If this was just for show, Netanyahu played it well," Barnea wrote. "But perhaps this was not only a show. Not this time."

Abbas faced harsh criticism back home for agreeing to the talks at all. Palestinian political activist Mustafa Barghouti joined a demonstration against resumption of the talks, though he has supported peace efforts in the past.

He contended that Israel's settlement construction was sabotaging chances for peace.

"What we heard [in Washington] did not change our minds at all," Barghouti said. "On the contrary, it confirmed our suspicions" that there would be "endless talks that will hardly produce results."

In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said Abbas had no right to negotiate for the Palestinian people. The outcome of the talks, he said, "only commits Abbas himself."

The head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog has asked Israel to consider signing up to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, a report made public Friday said, in a boost to Arab-led pressure on the Jewish state to join the pact.

Israel has not confirmed

it has a nuclear arsenal but is widely considered to be the Middle East's only nuclear power.

International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano "invited Israel to consider to accede" to the treaty during a visit to the country last month, said the IAEA report. He also asked Israel to "place

all its nuclear facilities under comprehensive IAEA safeguards."

Islamic nations have long called for Israel to open its nuclear program and join the treaty. A July 26 letter from Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, included in Friday's report, said Iran and Syria were the "real proliferation challenges."

- Associated Press

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