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Rice and Olmert, Monday morning
Photo: Moshe Milner, GPO
Photo: Doron Sheffer
Ma'ale Adumim: Another 44 residential units
Photo: Doron Sheffer

Olmert, Rice agree: Abbas must be bolstered

Prime minister meets US secretary of state, who promised to advance establishment of independent Palestinian state in coming months. Three-way meeting to be held in near future with Palestinian president

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met Monday morning with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at his Jerusalem residence.

  

The issues on the agenda were the efforts to maintain the truce between Israel and the Palestinians, and maybe even advance a diplomatic move, as well as the ticking bomb in Iran.

 

The meeting lasted more than three hours and was comprised of two parts: The first part was attended by teams from both sides, and the second and main part was a tete-a-tete meeting.

 

Olmert and Rice agreed that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas must be bolstered. The two decided to hold a three-way meeting with Abbas in the near future. They also agreed that the two offices, Olmert's and Abbas', will coordinate the future moves.

 

In the meeting, the leaders also agreed to continue building the mechanisms for the transfer of US and Israeli funds to the Palestinian Authority.

 

It was also agreed that Israel would continue to work for the ease of restrictions on the Palestinians, which Olmert and Abbas agreed upon in their meeting several weeks ago.

 

Objective: Advancing Palestinian state

Rice arrived in the region on Saturday, and her first meeting with her Israeli counterpart, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

 

The two were in complete agreement over the fact that the first stage of the Road Map, which includes the dismantling of terror infrastructures by the Palestinian Authority.

 

In her meetings both in Jerusalem and in Ramallah, Rice declared that one of her main objectives in the coming months was to advance the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

 

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas complained to Rice about the roadblocks, the Israeli operation inside Palestinian territories and the ongoing construction in Israeli settlements.

 

Also Monday morning, the Peace Now left-wing movement complained about another Housing Ministry tender for the construction of 44 new residential in Ma'ale Adumim.

 

"While the US secretary of state is visiting Israel and declaring that the Road Map will be implemented, Israel is blatantly violating its commitment to stop building in the settlements, including in the big settlement blocs," a movement official said.

 

Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces was instructed to tone down its activities as long as the secretary of state is in the region, as a lesson from the wide-scale operation which took place in Ramallah during Olmert and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's meeting in Sharm al-Sheikh.

 

Efrat Weiss contributed to the report

 


פרסום ראשון: 01.15.07, 08:36
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