The Obama administration wants Israel and Palestine to start direct negotiations as soon as possible and hopes that their leaders would soon take a decision in this regard.
“We are seeking having the parties (Israel and Palestine) enter into direct negotiations as soon as possible. We hope that the leaders will make that decision soon. And then we’ll see where the process goes from here,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters.
In response to a question he said that the US hopes that the parties would agree soon and get into the direct negotiations.
“Who will meet with who, when, where, how. We want to get into that process, and then we hope direct negotiations will begin to yield the progress that we hope for,” Mr Crowley said.
Acknowledging that there were lots of questions as to how this will proceed, Mr Crowley said the US has done a fair amount of work through the proximity talks.
“It's our view that we’ve taken the proximity talks as far as they can advance. We want to get the parties into direct negotiations. We don't want to have either side set preconditions prior to the start of the negotiations,” he asserted.
“We understand there are questions about how they will proceed, but that’s why we want to get into these negotiations. We are working earnestly with both sides to make sure that they have what we consider to be the right expectations and the right foundation leading into direct negotiations,” he said.
“As we get the parties into direct negotiations, I think everybody understands that there have been prior work done in this area. We have been discussing with both sides what their expectations are about these negotiations, but we think that now is the time to get into them,” Mr Crowley said.
He, however, refrained from going to go into detail from here as to what particular understandings exist at this point as the US encourages both sides to say yes.