All issues on table in Olmert-Abbas talks: US

United Nations, Feb 14: All issues are on the table when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice meets Palestinian and Israeli leaders next week, a US official said.

Alejandro Wolff, currently in charge of the US mission to the United Nations, was asked about reports from Israel that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was excluding some issues in negotiations Rice plans to hold in Jerusalem on Monday to revive long-stalled peace talks.

''I have not seen that comment. I can tell you that any time I've seen an agenda that the secretary of state wants to undertake .... all issues are discussed,'' Wolff told reporters yesterday during a break in a day of speeches by some 36 ambassadors on the Middle East in the UN Security Council.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted Olmert as excluding from the talks the future of East Jerusalem, the Palestinian refugees and an Israeli withdrawal to borders before the 1967 Middle East war. Palestinians expect to discuss those issues.

The Monday meeting with Rice was initially expected to explore the contours of a Palestinian state but some officials in Jerusalem said the focus would be on American and Israeli concerns about the unity government deal, negotiated by Hamas and Abbas' Fatah faction in Saudi Arabia last week.

But Riad Mansour, the Palestinian UN observer, defended the agreement.

''The Palestinian side has spoken: We are ready,'' Mansour told the council. ''Now the question that presents itself is whether Israel is ready for real and genuine talks to commence, which will forever terminate its occupation...'' He said the first part of the talks with Rice and Olmert would discuss the release of prisoners, taxes withheld by Israel and lifting restrictions of movement of Palestinians.

The second part, Mansour said, concerned the the overall political process, ''based on 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.''

Hopes For Peace Talks

Still, the senior UN Middle East envoy addressing the council, Alvaro de Soto, said the first political talks in six years between Israel and Palestinian leaders had the potential to re-energize peace efforts despite many difficulties.

He also pointed to ''a newly active Quartet,'' referring to talks among the mediators, the United States, the United Nations, Russia and the European Union, who plan to meet in Berlin on Feb 21, two days after Rice's talks.

De Soto also said that envoys from the quartet would consult in Jerusalem on Friday.

The quartet has set three conditions for ending crippling Western sanctions imposed after Hamas came to power last March.

They include recognition of Israel, renunciation of violence and acceptance of existing interim peace agreements, none of them explicitly endorsed in the unity deal.

Israel's UN ambassador, Daniel Gillerman, criticized the unity agreement, warning that there could not be a peace process if Hamas did not acknowledge Israel's existence.

''We have been fooled by a piece of paper before with tragic consequences. I hope the world has learned its lesson,'' he said. ''Hamas must now be made to understand that it cannot bypass these conditions by creating a facade of unity.'' ''The previous agreements are not part of a menu from which Hamas can pick or choose only those elements it wants to fulfill.'' Gillerman said.

Wolff as well as German Ambassador Thomas Matussek, representing the European Union, said the quartet's demands must be implemented.

Reuters

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