Israeli And Palestinian Negotiators Begin Talks

JERUSALEM — Top Israeli and Palestinian negotiators began talks on the core issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Monday, as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel sought to lower expectations of reaching a final peace agreement within a year.

“I’m not sure we can reach an agreement and I’m not sure we can reach its implementation,” Mr. Olmert told the Parliament’s foreign affairs and defense committee on Monday, according to an official who attended the meeting.

But Mr. Olmert said he would be “committing a sin to my duty” if he did not try, and called what he described as the right-wing opposition’s position of wanting to maintain the status quo “dangerous, adventurous and irresponsible.”

Tzipi Livni, Israel’s foreign minister, and the former Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, met in a hotel here for two hours, without aides, charged by their leaders with discussing the contentious issues necessary for any final status deal.

Being broached for the first time in seven years, the issues include borders, the fate of the Palestinian refugees of the 1948 war and their descendants, and the status of Jerusalem, the eastern part of which the Palestinians demand as the capital of a future state.

President Bush said last Thursday, during a visit to the West Bank city of Ramallah, that he believes there will be a signed treaty by the time he leaves office in Jan. 2009. Back in Jerusalem the same day, Mr. Bush laid out his views on some of the key issues, including the need for “mutually agreed adjustments to the armistice lines of 1949 to reflect current realities,” in a reference to populous Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank that Israel intends to keep; and a solution to the refugee issue based on compensation and return to a new Palestinian state, rather than to the refugees’ former homes in what is now Israel.

Ms. Livni said on Monday that the negotiations would be “conducted quietly,” away from the cameras, to prevent over-politicization of the talks, according to a statement from her office. “Faced with a choice between headlines and daily drama as opposed to results, I choose results,” Ms. Livni said.

Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian negotiator, said in an interview: “We need to make 2008 the year of peace and a treaty,” adding: “I really believe it’s doable.”

Mr. Erekat noted that the sides “are not beginning from scratch. We have had many negotiations in the past, and we don’t need to reinvent the wheel.”

The Israelis were satisfied with Mr. Bush’s statement last week. “We view it positively,” said Aryeh Mekel, a spokesman for Ms. Livni, adding that “it coincides with understandings we’ve reached with the United States.”

The Palestinian side was less enthusiastic. “Some of the things he said we agree with, and some we disagree with,” said Mr. Erekat, adding, “At the end of the day, what we need are Israeli-Palestinian agreements” rather than “decisions” from President Bush.

Mr. Olmert’s remarks on Monday may have partly been intended for internal consumption, with two of his more hawkish coalition partners, the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu Party and the religious Shas Party, having threatened to leave the government if the talks get serious.

Mr. Olmert has tried to assuage the ministers who lead those parties, and invited them to a select dinner with Mr. Bush on Thursday night.

Mark Regev, a spokesman for Mr. Olmert, said on Monday that “the prime minister wants to move ahead on the peace process and understands that the best way to do that is to keep the coalition stable and maintain a solid political base.”

But Mr. Olmert further angered Avigdor Lieberman, who leads Yisrael Beiteinu, when he said in an internal meeting on Sunday that Israel’s failure to remove illegal outposts in the West Bank was “a disgrace,” according to an Israeli official who was present in the meeting.

Israel has committed itself to removing about 26 outposts set up after March 1, 2001, and Mr. Bush said here that the illegal outposts had “to go.”

Though Mr. Olmert did not state who was to blame for the failure to remove the outposts, it technically falls under the purview of the Ministry of Defense.

In an apparent rebuttal, the Hebrew daily Haaretz on Monday cited “sources close to” the defense minister, Ehud Barak, saying that he had reached an agreement with leaders of the settlement movement for the peaceful evacuation of 18 outposts, but that Mr. Olmert had repeatedly opted to postpone the deal.

Yishai Hollender, a spokesman for the YESHA Council, an organization that represents Jewish settlers, said in an interview that there has been dialogue between the defense minister’s representatives and the settlers, but no agreement. Mr. Hollender added that the prime minister’s office has “torpedoed attempts” to reach an agreement “time after time,” and had been unwilling to accept the settlers’ terms.

Mr. Regev said he was “not aware” of any tension between Mr. Olmert and Mr. Barak, and that they were “on the same page.”

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