Tag: Peace Talks

Did Hell Freeze Over?

I awoke yesterday to a report that Israel’s hard line prime minister, Netanyahu has stated that he is open to the idea of a separate Palestinian state.  My first reaction was, “did hell freeze over?”

After I did some research I found that he had said he would accept a Palestinian state but wioth a few conditions.  These were:

1–No military

2-Must accept Israel’s right to exist

3–An undivided Jerusalem as capital of Israel

4–Israel’s right to build settlements in Occupied territory

Those were the main points of his speech, but after reading I as where is anything new?  These are the same conditions that have been thrown around for decades.  So any reporting on this as somehow a new path to a Middle East peace is just stretching things a bit far.

Now where is the incentive for Palestinians to come to the table with Netanyahu?  There is nothing new.  Israel will have all the benefits and the Pals will be left out in t he cold, yet again.

Basically, it is just a ploy to keep the US off their collective butts….for now….this is NOT a realistic offer.

Could This Be Peace?

A long-term truce between the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Israel may be announced within days, Hamas officials said in Cairo.

Moussa Abu Marzouk, a deputy leader of Hamas, said the truce would be announced within 48 hours.

“We have agreed to the truce with the Israeli side for one year and a half [in return] for the opening of all six passages between the Gaza Strip and Israel, and the halting of all military activity and aggression,” he was quoted as saying by the Egyptian state news agency Mena.

Hamas, he added, would first have to consult with other Palestinian factions.

Taher al-Nono, a member of Hamas’s negotiating team in Cairo, was earlier quoted by Reuters as saying that the deal would be announced within three days.

“Most of the obstacles that prevented us from reaching an agreement were resolved,” he said.

A step in the right direction…now if the two sides can just keep their fingers off the triggers then there could be a chance of real progress for a lasting peace…..we can only hope.

Taleban Spreading

The Taleban has a permanent presence in nearly 75% of Afghanistan, a new report by an international think-tank says.

The International Council on Security and Development says the insurgents can now infiltrate Kabul at will, although the government rejects the findings.

The International Council on Security and Development says the insurgent group has moved well beyond its southern heartland and is at the gates of Kabul.

But the conclusion that the Taleban now has a presence in nearly three-quarters of the country is being challenged by the government and foreign diplomats, who say the analysis is flawed.

The report comes as renewed efforts are being made to try to instigate peace talks with elements of the Taleban, our correspondent says.

A meeting is being planned in Dubai in the coming days involving 40 or so Afghans, representing both the insurgents and the government.

However, many are cautioning that this is just a first tentative step and expectations remain low.

Meanwhile, a US military spokesman has said that Taleban leader Mullah Omar’s first public statement for almost a year suggests he is concerned about rising US troop numbers.

Taliban Negotiations Begin

A major push to open negotiations with the Taliban on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border will begin Monday at a summit of leading political figures from the two countries, as the U.S.-backed governments in Kabul and Islamabad face a mounting threat from Islamic extremists.

Pakistani Taliban, based in the country’s tribal border area with Afghanistan, have joined the battle in Afghanistan and also taken on Islamabad. Nevertheless, the assembly of 50 people, called a jirga, which will meet for two days in Islamabad with the backing of both governments, is likely to question the continued presence of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Rustam Shah Mohmand, a participant and a former Pakistani ambassador to Afghanistan, said it’s impossible to deal with the Taliban while Western forces remain in Afghanistan. He also said that the Kabul and Islamabad governments must drop their insistence that they’ll negotiate only with Taliban who’ve disarmed.

This year has been the most violent in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S. invasion toppled the Taliban regime. Signs that Western will may be collapsing have panicked many Afghans, who fear that the international community is about to abandon them once again, as it did after the Soviets withdrew from the country in 1989.

Give Peace A Chance?

The Taliban have been engaged in secret talks about ending the conflict in Afghanistan in a wide-ranging ‘peace process’ sponsored by Saudi Arabia and supported by Britain, The Observer can reveal.

The unprecedented negotiations involve a senior former member of the hardline Islamist movement travelling between Kabul, the bases of the Taliban senior leadership in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and European capitals. Britain has provided logistic and diplomatic support for the talks – despite official statements that negotiations can be held only with Taliban who are ready to renounce, or have renounced, violence.

Sources in Afghanistan confirmed the controversial talks, though they said that in recent weeks they had ‘lost momentum’. According to Afghan government officials in Kabul, the intensity of the fighting this summer has been one factor. Another is the inconsistency of the Taliban’s demands.

Although there have been low-level contacts with individual Taliban commanders at district level before, the Saudi initiative is the first attempt to talk to the Taliban leadership council based in or around the south-west Pakistan city of Quetta, known as the ‘Quetta Shura’.

The Taliban are understood to have submitted a list of 11 conditions for ending hostilities, which include demands to be allowed to run key ministries and a programmed withdrawal of western troops.

A US Coalition To Stop A War With Iran

An unusual coalition of interest groups from left and right is launching a drive today to head off an American military attack on Iran by pushing America into high-level negotiations with Tehran.

The Campaign for a New American Policy on Iran, which bills itself as “transpartisan,” consists of more than three dozen organizations, most of them left-leaning, such as the American Friends Service Committee, the Institute for Policy Studies, and the Open Society Policy Center, which is backed by George Soros.

However, the campaign also has the backing of a smattering of right-of-center groups, including the American Conservative Defense Alliance, the Libertarian Party, and the American Cause, which is headed by Patrick Buchanan.

The campaign to push for direct talks with Iran’s mullahs is kicking off with a press conference this morning on Capitol Hill expected to feature the Libertarian nominee for president, Robert Barr, as well as several members of Congress, including Reps. Keith Ellison of Minnesota and Barbara Lee of California, both Democrats, and Rep. Ron Paul, who mounted a bid for this year’s Republican presidential nomination. Brandishing red telephones supposed to symbolize a hotline to Tehran, the group will urge supporters to call Congress and press for talks.
One advocate of a tough line toward Tehran, Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute, disputed the coalition’s suggestion that America has been unwilling to talk with Iran. “We’ve tried everything. There’s no stick we haven’t brandished. There’s no carrot we haven’t dangled,” he said. “They don’t want us. They’re our enemies.”

Some campaign participants could draw unwanted notoriety to the effort. Last year, federal prosecutors named one member of the coalition, the Council on American Islamic Relations, as an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal case linking the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation and Hamas. Cair denied the claim and asked a judge to strike the co-conspirator list from the public record. Jurors acquitted the defendants on some counts and could not reach a verdict on most, but Cair’s motion was never ruled on.

Apparently not all pundits are agreeing with McCain and the Bush rhetoric.  I wish them success for a peaceful end to these smoldering hostilities.