Clinton puts onus on Israel, Palestinians to end Mideast impasse

Washington: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will tell Israel and the Palestinians on Friday that Washington is committed to peace but it is their responsibility to end their conflict, the State Department said on Friday.

"She will make clear that the United States remains committed to this process but that responsibility to end the conflict ultimately rests with the parties themselves," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters, referring to a speech Clinton is due to give at 8 p.m. EST on Friday (0100 GMT on Saturday).

Clinton stepped up her efforts on Friday to break the deadlock in Middle East peace negotiations but there was no immediate sign of progress.

The White House said meanwhile that US President Barack Obama will "remain engaged" in the peace process despite his failure to win a new Israeli settlements freeze in the West Bank as a means to keep fledgling talks going.

"The president understands that this process is one that would not be easy and that would take the continued and constant engagement of our country," spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat emerged from an hour of talks here with Clinton saying it was "premature to speak about a course of action" after the failure on settlements and again blamed Israel for the deadlock.

"The Israeli government had a choice between colonies and peace and they chose settlements," Erakat told reporters outside the State Department.

In a flurry of meetings seeking alternatives to revive the peace negotiations, Clinton was also due to meet later with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni, head of Israel's centrist opposition Kadima Party.

These talks follow sessions with Israel's chief peace negotiator Yitzhak Molcho on Thursday.

Top Palestinian officials were meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Friday to discuss the collapse of direct talks with Israel, officials said.

Peace talks were thrown into deeper disarray on Tuesday when the Obama administration conceded it had failed in its weeks-long efforts to persuade Israel to renew a freeze on Jewish settlement building in the West Bank.

Obama presided over the relaunch of direct talks in Washington in September, only to see them stall within weeks when a settlement moratorium expired and the Palestinians refused to return to the table.

The burst of talks will be capped by an 8:00 pm (0100 GMT) speech Clinton will give to the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, outlining new ideas to rescue the Obama administration's struggling diplomatic efforts in the region.

Although US officials said there was no immediate prospect of direct talks, they said such negotiations were needed to reach agreement on the core issues, insisting they could still clinch a deal by the original August deadline.

The core issues are Israel's security, the borders of a future Palestinian state, the fate of Palestinian refugees and the status of the holy city of Jerusalem, which both sides claim as their capital.

Erakat told AFP he held talks on Thursday with US Mideast peace envoy George Mitchell, his assistant David Hale and Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman over the failed US attempt to secure a new settlement freeze.

In the meeting, Erakat reiterated that the Palestinians would not negotiate without a complete cessation of all settlement building in the occupied Palestinian territories, especially in east Jerusalem.

Speaking Thursday after meeting UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York, Barak said Israel and the Palestinians must move beyond their dispute over settlement construction to find a new "formula" for peace negotiations.

Barak said the two sides had to find "a way that contains both a sense of urgency and a sense of purpose."

The UN chief "emphasised that it was vital to break the current diplomatic stalemate and resume negotiations," his spokesman said in a statement.

The European Union was under pressure from former European leaders to sanction Israel over the peace impasse, but is instead expected to restrict its stand to a plea for "urgent progress," due to its own divisions.