Before Speech on Mideast Talks, Sec. Clinton Meets With Livni
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Kadima chairwoman and opposition leader Tzipi Livni at the State Department in Washington on Friday, only a few days after the U.S. and Israel announced that talks between Jerusalem and Washington over a new freeze on West Bank settlement construction in exchange for a set of U.S. guarantees had hit a dead end.
The meeting, initiated by Clinton, marks the first time that Livni has been invited for a meeting with Clinton in Washington since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was elected in early 2009. Until now, the American officials had only met with Livni in Israel, so as not to give the appearance of interfering in Israel’s internal politics.
It is not clear whether the meeting represents an American attempt to send a message of dissatisfaction to Netanyahu in the wake Israel’s failure to extend the settlement construction freeze, but it is likely the meeting will not be viewed positively by Netanyahu.
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