Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have laid the groundwork to resume peace talks frozen for three years and will meet in Washington within “the next week or so,” US secretary of state John Kerry said.
After a day of dramatic diplomacy and a late afternoon helicopter dash to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, Mr Kerry announced a hard-won breakthrough to get the two sides back to the negotiating table. Both Israel and the Palestinian presidency welcomed the development, but the Islamist Hamas movement, which runs the Gaza Strip, rejected a return to talks. Mr Kerry’s announcement on Friday came after he spent four days consulting the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships from his base in an Amman hotel.
“I am pleased to announce that we have reached an agreement that establishes a basis for resuming direct final status negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis,” he told reporters in Amman just minutes before boarding his plane to fly home.
“This is a significant and welcome step forward,” he added, having doggedly pushed the two sides to agree to resume talks in six intense trips to the region since becoming the top US diplomat in February.
But after a day in which the deal almost slipped away, forcing him to spend hours working the phones, the top US diplomat cautioned he would remain tight-lipped about the details.
“I think all of us know that candid, private conversations are the very best way to preserve the time and the space for progress and understanding when you face difficult, complicated issues such as Middle East peace,” he said.