Palestinians, Israelis and Americans meet but fail to save peace talks

An emergency trilateral meeting between the Palestinian Authority (PA), Israel and the US was held in Jerusalem on Wednesday night, but the parties failed to reach an agreement to save the faltering peace talks, a Palestinian official revealed on Thursday morning.

The official said that the meeting, which included chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and US Peace Envoy to the Middle East Martin Indyk, concentrated on pressuring the PA to extend the talks, due to expire at the end of April, in exchange for releasing more Palestinian prisoners.

According to the official, the meeting lasted for four hours. He explained that Indyk put a lot of pressure on the PA to extend the talks beyond the deadline in order to give the US Administration a new chance to find a solution to the ailing peace process.

After the last minute negotiations to extend the talks stalled, he said that the US administration pledged to continue making extensive contacts with the Palestinians and Israelis throughout the day in an attempt to bridge the gap between the two sides.

“Until now,” the official said, “the PA has not completely closed the door to the American efforts to press the Israeli occupation to release the fourth batch of prisoners, who were previously set to be freed earlier this week” under the agreement reached with Israel last summer.

Israel’s failure to release the prisoners and its subsequent announcement of a tender to build more settlements in occupied East Jerusalem stalled US efforts to negotiate a framework agreement that would provide the basis for extending the current round of peace talks.

This meeting came just one day after PA President Mahmoud Abbas decided to join 15 international treaties and organisations. Israel considers this step a breach of the Oslo Accords.