May PNA move to direct talks in Sept due to U.S. pressure?
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It has been obvious that over the past two weeks, the U.S. administration has been exerting pressure on the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) to move from the proximity talks with Israel to the face-to-face negotiations over the permanent status issues.
The Ramallah-based al-Ayyam Daily on Monday quoted senior Palestinian sources as saying that U.S. peace envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell, who will arrive in Ramallah on Saturday, would urge the PNA to move to the face-to-face peace negotiations with Israel in September.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat on Monday told Xinhua that Mitchell will hold talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah on Saturday.
Erekat denied that Mitchell would urge the Palestinian side to move from proximity talks to direct talks in September.
"The Palestinian side is sticking to its stance that it is important to achieve a progress in the files of security and borders in addition to the complete cessation of settlement construction and accept to resume the peace talks from the point it ended in December 2008," said Erekat.
Fate of proximity talks is vague
After the United States failed to persuade the Palestinians to resume the direct peace talks with Israel which stopped in December 2008, after they insisted no talks before halting settlement, the United States proposed the idea of going for four- month proximity talks between the two sides.
The four-month proximity talks between Israel and the PNA, which was backed by the Arab League and the European Union, were officially launched by Mitchell in May 9.
Mitchell held several rounds of talks with Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Abbas, however, without achieving any progress.
Hani Habib, a Gaza-based political analyst, told Xinhua that last week's summit held at the White House between U.S. President Barack Obama and Netanyahu "has put a direct end to the indirect talks, and that is obvious in the last telephone conversation between Obama and Abbas."
"Following the statements of Obama and Netanyahu over their desire to go directly for peace negotiations, I believe that the proximity talks have stopped and the American Administration will keep pressuring on the Palestinians to go for direct negotiations, " said Habib.
