Obama plots Middle East talks coup
Barack Obama aims kick-start Middle East peace talks next month
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By Will Haine. |  |
Wednesday, 26, Aug 2009 10:24
By Matthew Champion.
Barack Obama hopes to hold key talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders next month to announce a resumption of Middle East peace talks.
According to diplomatic sources President Obama wants to announce talks getting back on track flanked by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas at a meeting of the UN general assembly in New York in September.
Peace talks had been put on the backburner after an Israeli offensive in Gaza at the turn of this year, while the election of Mr Netanyahu's Likud party to government proved a further blow.
The current Israeli administration is yet to explicitly back the two-state solution elevated by Mr Obama as the only viable option. The Jewish state has also been stung by Washington's insistence that settlement building be frozen as a precursor to talks; a fact that is problematic for members of Mr Netanyahu's cabinet who actually live in settlements.
Mr Netanyahu is currently in London where he yesterday held talks with Gordon Brown ahead of a meeting with President Obama's Middle East envoy George Mitchell.
It has emerged that a key part of any talks beginning is a new wave of international action against Iran's nuclear programme.
The US, Britain, France and Germany are expected to ask Russia and China to consider a fourth round of sanctions against Tehran at the UN next month.
"If there is no further progress immediately then I believe the world will have to look at stepping up sanctions against Iran as a matter of priority," Mr Brown said on Tuesday.
A diplomatic source added: "Iran is an existential threat to Israel; settlements are not."