Obama invites Mideast leaders to White House
633 words
21 April 2009
Al Arabiya
English
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American President Barack Obama dived Tuesday into Middle East peacemaking as he invited the
Israeli, Palestinian and Egyptian leaders to the White House in the coming weeks for separate talks on
moving forward with the Middle East peace process, the White House said Tuesday. Obama called for
"good faith" gestures from all sides, including Israel.
Spokesman Robert Gibbs said the president, who received Jordan's King Abdullah II earlier in the Oval
Office, invited Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas and
Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak to the White House. Gibbs told reporters the visits were expected in the
coming weeks.
Obama signaled deeper involvement in the peace process weeks after Netanyahu took the helm of an
Israeli government that resists the two-state solution endorsed by the new U.S. administration. ArabIsraeli peace
After his inauguration on January 20, Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton named George
Mitchell as the special envoy for Arab-Israeli peace, a move analysts said signals constant and focused
high-level involvement.
Obama's predecessor George W. Bush largely left the peace process to his secretary of state,
Condoleezza Rice, after they convened a conference in Annapolis, Maryland in November 2007 to relaunch the negotiations after a seven-year hiatus.
After meeting the Jordanian king, Obama said: "My hope would be that over the next several months ...
you start seeing gestures of good faith on all sides."
"I don't want to get into the details of what those gestures might be, but I think that the parties in the
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region probably have a pretty good recognition of what intermediate steps could be taken as confidencebuilding measures."
The king was paying his first visit to the White House since Obama became president in January vowing
to work for Middle East peace.
"We've had some very fruitful discussions this morning with President Obama," Abdullah told reporters as
he began talks with Clinton.
He added that Jordan and the Arab countries will work on "how to bring Israelis and Palestinians to the
negotiating table and hopefully open a new chapter of peace and stability in the Middle East and move
the peace process forward."
Two-state solution
Clinton reiterated the Obama administration's backing for a "search for peace that would result from a
two-state solution in the Middle East."
She said she and the Jordanian king were in "total agreement" for a two-state solution.
Gibbs said it was likely the separate visits by Arab and Israeli leaders would take place before Obama is
scheduled to visit Normandy for the annual D-Day commemoration in June.
"With each of them the president will discuss ways the United States can strengthen and deepen our
partnerships with them, as well as the steps all parties must take to help achieve peace between Israelis
and Palestinians and between Israel and the Arab States," Gibbs added.
Obama met both Netanyahu, who was then in opposition, and Abdullah during a visit to their two
countries last year after securing the Democratic presidential nomination.
In recent weeks, Obama made clear to Israel he believes that the path to peace lies in already agreed
frameworks made in the stalled roadmap plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace and the Annapolis agreement.
Two weeks ago, in an address to Turkey's parliament, Obama said that the United States "strongly
supports the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security."
His remarks came after Avigdor Lieberman, the foreign minister of Israel's new right-leaning government,
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said that the 2007 Annapolis document did not bind Israel though he did accept the roadmap as the basis
for progress.
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