Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

U.S. Invites Israel, Palestinians To Relaunch Talks

The United States has invited Israel and the Palestinians to relaunch direct talks, but the parameters remain vague.

“On behalf of the United States government I’ve invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to meet on Sept. 2 to resolve all final status issues which we believe can be completed within one year,” Hillary Rodham Clinton, the U.S. secretary of state, said in a conference call on Friday.

George Mitchell, the top U.S. envoy to the region, suggested the parameters to the talks had yet to be determined.

“It will be for the parties themselves to decide the manner in which they will be addressed,” he said, responding to a question regarding when and how the parties will get to the final status issues, which include borders, Jerusalem and refugees. “There are differences of opinions on both sides on how best to succeed. We don’t expect all of those differences to disappear when talks begin.”

The two leaders, joined by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordanian King Abdullah, have been invited to dine with President Obama on Sept. 1; prior to the dinner, Obama will meet with each leader separately. The next day, Netanyahu, Abbas and Clinton will meet at the State Department to launch talks.

Netanyahu accepted the offer within minutes of its announcement.

“Reaching an agreement is a difficult challenge but is possible,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “We are coming to the talks with a genuine desire to reach a peace agreement between the two peoples that will protect Israel’s national security interests, foremost of which is security.”

It was not immediately clear if Abbas, Mubarak and Abdullah had accepted their invitations.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.