Iran's foreign minister says his country has already responded to a U.N.-brokered nuclear fuel plan, while countries involved in negotiations say they are still waiting for a reply.
Iranian state media quote Manouchehr Mottaki as saying Wednesday that Western nations are trying to tell Iran that it must respond to the plan in "the manner that they expect."
President Barack Obama recently said Iran is running out of time to respond to the proposal, and warned of consequences if Iran fails to show its nuclear program is peaceful.
Mottaki says Iran has rejected a part of the plan that would have Iran send its enriched uranium abroad in exchange for nuclear fuel.
He says Iran would consider a uranium-for-fuel swap inside the country.
The deal, brokered by the International Atomic Energy Agency, is designed to ease concerns about Iran's nuclear program, which Western nations say is aimed at creating weapons. Tehran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
The deal was agreed to by the other parties involved in negotiations including Russia, the United States and France.
Palestinian leaders are warning Israel that its approval of 900 new housing units in a disputed area of Jerusalem may kill the peace process. The warning came after the United States condemned the Israeli decision. The Palestinians want Washington to toughen its approach on Israel.
The response from Palestinian officials contained no surprises after Israel said this week it would go ahead with construction of 900 new units in Gilo, a Jewish community in East Jerusalem.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said the action threatens to kill the peace process.
"This is a clear decision and a clear message, not just for Palestinains but for the American administration itself that Israel is not willing and is not ready to stop settlement activities and much more important than this, that they are not ready for peace," said Rudeineh.
The Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
The planned construction is on lands that Israel captured as part of its victory in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. The Jewish state later formally annexed East Jerusalem in a move that was not recognized by the international community.
The Israeli Prime Minister's office is not commenting on the plans for expansion, but a statement on Tuesday said construction in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo is nothing new. It said Gilo is an integral part of Jerusalem and that building in the neighborhood has continued unabated for decades.
On Wednesday, President Abbas' spokesman, Abu Rudeineh welcomed President Obama's criticism of the plans for new construction in Gilo. However, he said Washington needs to go further and toughen its stance or risk ruining the peace process.
"The Americans should take seriously what is going on," he added. "The whole situation is deteriorating. The Americans this time should change their policy, the change which we have been promised by President Obama."
President Obama, in his speech to the Muslim world in June, called for Israel to stop settlement expansion in the West Bank and allow for the establishment of a Palestinian State.
Washington, however, angered the Palestinians this month when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised what she said were Israel's concessions for peace.
Israel has offered to restrain construction on settlements in the West Bank, but has made no offers regarding construction in East Jerusalem.
Israel considers all of Jerusalem its undivided capital.
Palestinians' frustration over the stalled peace process has been rising in recent weeks. President Abbas has threatened to resign, and his government says it is pushing unilaterally for the declaration of a Palestinian state. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that any such action will trigger unilateral steps from the Israeli side.
King Abdullah greeted Mr. Sarkozy at the airport, and the two men then headed to the king's farm outside Riyadh. The trip is being billed as a largely personal visit.
The French president and Saudi ruler are expected to discuss a possible Saudi purchase of French-made military equipment, as well as a civilian nuclear agreement. But the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations are expected to top the agenda.
Mr. Sarkozy met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Paris last week to discuss ways to revive Mideast peace talks.
King Abdullah offered an Israeli-Palestinian peace proposal back in 2002. The plan calls for full normalization of ties with Israel in exchange for its withdrawal from all land captured in the 1967 Mideast War.
King Abdullah and U.S. President Barack Obama discussed the Saudi initiative when they met in April. White House officials said Mr. Obama reiterated his support for that initiative on Arab-Israeli peace.
President Barack Obama says Iran will face consequences if it fails to show its nuclear program is peaceful and transparent.
President Obama told reporters in Beijing Tuesday that the U.S and China agree that Iran must provide assurance of its peaceful intentions to the international community.
China and the U.S. are among six world powers, known as the P5+1, seeking a negotiated end to Iran's nuclear program.
Mr. Obama said Sunday that Iran is running out of time to respond to a U.N.-backed proposal to ship its low-enriched uranium to Russia for further processing.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki says Tehran would take a positive view of the plan if the uranium swap happens inside Iran.
Speaking to Indian media during his two-day visit to New Delhi, Mottaki said Iran is not willing to send its own nuclear fuel out of the country before receiving the fuel for its Tehran nuclear reactor.
"I do not think it is too early to have a Palestinian state. We would [have liked] to have a Palestinian state years back." - EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana
The European Union has followed the United States in saying it is not ready to recognize Palestinian statehood, after Palestinian leaders declared they would seek that status at the United Nations.
Speaking to reporters in Brussels, Foreign Minister Carl Bildt of Sweden, which holds the rotating European Union presidency, said the time is not right for recognizing a Palestinian state.
"I do not think we are there yet," he said. "I would hope that we would be in a position to recognize a Palestinian state, but there has to be one first. So I think that is somewhat premature. We have said previously if you go back to what the European Union has said that we would be in a position to recognize a Palestinian state, but the conditions are not there as of yet."
Bildt said the European Union is discussing other steps to increase support for Palestinian aspirations. And at a press conference later in the day, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana offered strong backing for an eventual Palestinian state.
"I do not think it is too early to have a Palestinian state. We would [have liked] to have a Palestinian state years back," Solana said. "The point is ... you know the negotiations have failed so far. [But a Palestinian state] is something the European Union has been defending for years back."
Palestinian leaders have said they would seek statehood recognition from the U.N. Security Council for an area comprising the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. But they have not set a date for this and the United states says any future Palestinian state must be the fruit of negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis.
Talks between the two sides have reached an impasse in recent months, despite Washington's efforts to revive them. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has also tried to re-ignite the peace process, holding discussions in recent days with Israeli, Syrian and Palestinian leaders.
Palestinian leaders say they are pushing efforts to have the UN Security Council endorse the creation of a Palestinian state out of frustration over the stalled peace process.Israel has threatened to take its own unilateral steps if the Palestinians move ahead with plans for statehood on their own.
It was a swift and angry reaction from Israel when the Palestinians said this week they would push unilaterally for the UN Security Council to endorse an independent state for them.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the Palestinians not to do anything on their own.
Mr. Netanyahu said there is no replacement for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.He said any one-sided step will unravel the framework of agreements that exist and cause unilateral steps from the Israeli side.
Mr. Netanyahu's warnings drew an angry response from the Palestinians under the leadership of President Mahmoud Abbas and his moderate Fatah faction. Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat accused the Israeli leader of undermining the peace process.
"He threatens with unilateral steps," said Saeb Erekat. "Do you think that settlement activity is bilateral?Excuse me, we are the moderate camp.We are the ones who want to achieve the two-state solution.This Israeli government is doing nothing.Look on the ground: we have recognized the State of Israel's right to live in peace and security, next to the state of Palestine.Now, what Mr. Netanyahu is doing is really eating up the land that is supposed to be the Palestinian state with more settlements, with more malls, with more confiscation of land."
The Palestinians say they decided to take the matter of statehood to the U.N. Security Council out of frustration that 16 years after the signing of the Oslo accords there is still no peace agreement.
Hani al-Masri heads the Palestine Media, Research, and Studies Center, research organization in the West Bank town of Ramallah.He echoes the belief among many Palestinians the peace process is going nowhere.
He says the peace process, in his mind, has been dead for a long time.He said it died when a Jewish extremist killed peacemaking Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and when, in his words, Israel did not implement the Oslo peace accords.Al Masri said there is the belief among many Palestinians the peace process died a long time ago and is waiting for someone to bury it.
The United States is keeping up its efforts to bring both sides back to the negotiation table.On the thorny subject of Jewish settlements, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called for both sides to deal with the issue in negotiations.
Some left-of-center members of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, are pushing for Mr. Netanyahu's right-wing leadership to make concessions.
One observer, Akiva Eldar, a senior columnist at the Haaretz newspaper in Tel Aviv, sees no movement unless one of the sides takes the first step.
"As an Israeli, I can say that now we have to make the move," said Akiva Eldar. "As President Obama insisted and as part of the Israeli Knesset believes, Israel has to now give clear guarantees that it is not going to expand these settlements.So I cannot expect the Arabs to make any move that I do not expect or demand the Israelis to do.It has to be, I think, in way, reciprocal and symmetric."
On the Palestinian side, any flexibility on the matter of settlements can cost the leadership dearly.
Officials within the Fatah faction of President Abbas, said last week he was close to resigning as his popularity plummeted.Mr. Abbas has postponed elections indefinitely that were due for January, as some accused him of failing to persuade the Israelis to freeze settlement growth and grant other concessions.
For Mr. Abbas' political allies and for the Israelis, there is concern that elections held now might mean gains for the militant Islamist Hamas faction, whose charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish State.
The Palestinians under Mr. Abbas are sticking to their demand that Israel freeze settlement construction before a return to negotiations.
Analysts say it remains to be seen whether the Palestinians' unilateral effort to get a U.N. security endorsement of a Palestinian state will be sustained or is no more than a publicity stunt meant to get Israel to make concessions.
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Archive
King Mohammed VI of Morocco has strongly condemned the extremist Jews who chose to celebrate their holy day Yom Kippur by entering Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque with the aid of Israeli soldiers. The King also expressed his rejection of the “violent aggressions against Palestinians” by the Israeli soldiers and considers these acts “irresponsible and helpless to the peace process” in the region. Morocco insists on the need for the UN Security Council to put an end to the Israeli violation and to find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Iranian revolution stunned the world in 1979. Now the Arab ruling class stands by as history repeats itself. Why are Arab leaders keeping quiet about the crisis in Tehran? And is there a double standard in media coverage?
The modern day Middle East is the product of many agreements, accords and treaties postulated over the last 100 years. Color Daily has developed a list of the most important of those documents and built links to sites on the internet where they can be read in their entirety.
Efforts to prosecute those who may have committed war crimes in Israel's war on Gaza have spread beyond the Middle East. A lawyer in South Africa has identified 75 South African nationals who he says were fighting with the Israeli army in the war earlier this year. Feroze Boda, based in Johannesburg and working on behalf of two local pro-Palestinian organisations, says the soldiers should face court action in South Africa for their involvement.
A South African law, the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act, bars any citizen from fighting for a foreign force without express government permission.
Click on the picture of President Barack Obama entering the Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul to enter the Magazine and read in depth articles on the Middle East.
Israel – safe haven for criminals? One of the FBI’s most wanted men, Micky Louis Mayon, managed to evade capture in Israel for almost a year. However, Israel says it is determined not to be seen as a safe haven for foreign criminals or illegal immigrants. The sight of Israeli police patrolling pavements has become an all too familiar, but in the very heart of Tel-Aviv, practically under the nose of the police, one of the FBI’s most wanted men was living freely for almost a year. Micky Louis Mayon, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, a racist, anti-semitic hate group, was wanted for the burning of cars belonging to U.S. federal judges and other acts of violence
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: Middle East Program
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