Let's start talking first

Occupied Jerusalem: The US has softened its language on a total colony freeze as a precondition for jumpstarting peace talks and is pressing Israel and the Palestinians to intensify efforts to re-launch deadlocked talks very soon, a senior Palestinian official said.

"Israelis have facilitated greater freedom of movement for the Palestinians and have discussed important steps to restrain colonial activity," US President Barack Obama told reporters before a summit with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the margins of a UN meeting in New York on Tuesday.

"Simply put, it is past time to talk about starting negotiations - it is time to move forward. It is time to show the flexibility and common sense and sense of compromise that's necessary to achieve our goals. Permanent status negotiations must begin and begin soon. And more importantly, we must give those negotiations the opportunity to succeed," Obama said.

The US President's choice of the word "restraint" rather than the previous demand for a full cessation or freeze of colony growth in the occupied West Bank signalled a softening of his position on an issue that created a serious rift between his administration and close ally Israel.

One Palestinian official said Obama told the Palestinians during the trilateral meeting in New York that his special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, had failed to extract an Israeli approval for a full colony freeze and that the Palestinians should move on and should not make the colonies issue an impediment to kickstarting final status talks. "President Obama promised he would keep trying to get a total colony freeze," the official told Gulf News. He said the Palestinians and Israelis would continue to discuss the colonies issue within the framework of the final status talks.

Mitchell told reporters the US is "not identifying any issue as being a precondition or an impediment to negotiation".

Senior Palestinian officials said Obama was pushing the sides to intensify meetings with Mitchell and other senior US officials to try to agree on a peace package before mid-October. Netanyahu told Israeli reporters after the trilateral meeting that Abbas had dropped his preconditions for negotiations and discussions were now focused on the framework of the talks. Netanyahu was quoted by the Israeli media as saying: "There was a general agreement by all sides, including the Palestinians, to renew the negotiations without preconditions."

Mitchell has been engaged in intensive meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders since Obama took office in January to convince Israel to halt colony construction as a precondition to kickstarting negotiations.

Israel has agreed to slow down the construction but has rejected a total freeze, including in occupied Jerusalem. The international community considers colonies illegal under international law and have called on Israel to freeze construction in occupied Palestinian lands.

Israel occupied the West Bank, including Arab East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in 1967. The Palestinians want to set up a state on these lands but say colonies prevent the creation of a viable, contiguous state.

Obama is the first US President to insist on a total colony freeze as a precondition for the success of Palestinian statehood talks.

Palestinian officials said they had told Netanyahu and Obama at the New York meeting they want peace talks to start from the point they left off with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Abbas and Olmert held detailed discussions in 2008 on all key final status issues such as the fate of occupied Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees, colonies, borders, and security, but failed to reach agreement before Olmert left office on allegations of corruption.

Israel under Netanyahu refuses to restart negotiations on the basis of the compromises Olmert made to Abbas on permanent status issues.

- Wafa Amr is a freelance journalist based in Ramallah