PALESTINIANS PUT DAMPER ON BID TO RENEW TALKS

[Abbas dug into his positions after resisting heavy, U.S.-led pressure to abandon his bid to have the United Nations recognize a state of Palestine in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. His willingness to stand up to Washington has won him newfound respect at home, where he had been considered a lackluster leader. The unilateral bid for statehood and U.N. membership reflects deep-seated Palestinian exasperation over 44 years of Israeli occupation.]

By Amy Teibel and Mohammed Daraghmeh 

UNITED NATIONS — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas strongly suggested Saturday that he would reject a peacemaking blueprint put forward by international mediators, saying he would not agree to any proposal that disregarded Palestinian conditions for the resumption of peace talks.

Abbas, who returned to the West Bank on Saturday after submitting a statehood bid at the United Nations a day earlier, told reporters accompanying him that he was still studying the proposal by the peacemaking “Quartet” — the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia.

But he said that “we will not deal with any initiative” that does not demand a halt to Israeli settlement construction or negotiations based on borders before the 1967 war, when Israel captured land the Palestinians claim for their state.

The Quartet statement made no such demands.

Abbas dug into his positions after resisting heavy, U.S.-led pressure to abandon his bid to have the United Nations recognize a state of Palestine in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. His willingness to stand up to Washington has won him newfound respect at home, where he had been considered a lackluster leader. The unilateral bid for statehood and U.N. membership reflects deep-seated Palestinian exasperation over 44 years of Israeli occupation.

Israel has had no comment on the Quartet plan to resume long-stalled negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel, which mediators regard as the only way to establish a Palestinian state. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the long-standing conditions Abbas has put forth, saying talks must go forward without imposing terms.

Netanyahu opposes negotiations based on the 1967 lines, saying a return to those frontiers would expose Israel’s heartland to rocket fire from the West Bank. And he says the fate of settlements should be left to negotiations.

The Quartet urged both parties to draw up an agenda for peace talks within a month and produce comprehensive proposals on territory and security within three months. Mediators aspire to a final deal within a year, but similar plans have failed to produce a peace agreement, and this latest proposal offered no program for bridging the differences that have stymied negotiations for most of the past three years.

The Quartet plan was meant to rechannel to negotiations any momentum the Palestinians would gain from their statehood application. A U.N. nod would not deliver any immediate changes on the ground: Israel would remain an occupying force in the West Bank and east Jerusalem and continue to restrict access to Gaza, ruled by Palestinian Hamas militants.

But Palestinians are hoping that an upgrade in their international status would give them more clout in any future talks with Israel.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon relayed the Palestinians’ statehood request to the Security Council on Friday, shortly after Abbas formally submitted it. It is expected to be shot down there — because it will not win the required support of nine of the council’s 15 members, or because the United States will make good on its threat to veto it. The Security Council will meet Monday to deal with the membership request, but final action is likely to take weeks or months.


@ The Washington Post

TOP PAKISTAN ARMY COMMANDERS MEET AFTER US CLAIMS

[Pakistan's leaders have shown no indication that they plan to act on renewed American demands to attack the Haqqani network in their main base in Pakistan, even at the risk of further conflict with Washington, which has given the country billions of dollars in military and economic aid.]

 

Associated Press

Pakistani protesters burn representations of US and Indian flags
 at an anti-American rally in Multan, Pakistan on Friday, 
Sept 23, 2011. Pakistan lashed out at the U.S. for accusing the 
country's most powerful intelligence agency of supporting 
extremist attacks against American targets in Afghanistan  
the most serious allegations against Islamabad since the 
beginning of the Afghan war. (AP Photo/Khalid Tanveer)

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's army chief will convene a special meeting of senior commanders Sunday following U.S. allegations that the military's spy agency helped militants attack American targets in Afghanistan, the army said.

Senior Pakistani officials have lashed out against the allegations of support for the Haqqani militant network, accusing the U.S. of trying to make Pakistan a scapegoat for its troubled war in Afghanistan. The public spat has plunged the troubled U.S.-Pakistan alliance to new lows.

Pakistan's leaders have shown no indication that they plan to act on renewed American demands to attack the Haqqani network in their main base in Pakistan, even at the risk of further conflict with Washington, which has given the country billions of dollars in military and economic aid.

The top U.S. military officer, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, accused Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency Thursday of supporting Haqqani insurgents in planning and executing a 22-hour assault on the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan on Sept. 13 and a truck bomb that wounded 77 American soldiers days earlier.

Kayani, widely considered the most powerful man in Pakistan, has dismissed the allegations, saying the charges were baseless and part of a public "blame game" detrimental to peace in Afghanistan.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani also slapped down the accusations in a statement issued late Saturday.

"We strongly reject assertions of complicity with the Haqqanis or of proxy war," said Gilani in a written statement. "The allegations betray a confusion and policy disarray within the U.S. establishment on the way forward in Afghanistan.

Pakistan claimed to have severed its ties with Afghan militants after the 9/11 attacks and supported America's campaign in Afghanistan, but U.S. officials have long suspected it maintained links. Mullen's comments were the most serious yet accusing Pakistan of militant ties, although he didn't cite any specific evidence.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has implied that American forces could even carry out unilateral raids inside Pakistan against the Haqqani network, operations that could have explosive implications in Pakistan where anti-American sentiment is widespread.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar warned the U.S. on Saturday against sending American troops into Pakistan, saying there are red lines and rules of engagement that should not be broken.

"It opens all kinds of doors and all kinds of options," she told Pakistan's private Aaj News TV from New York. The comment was in response to a question about the possibility of U.S. troops coming to Pakistan.

Despite the seriousness of the U.S. claims, which appear to accuse Pakistan of state-sponsored terrorism, Mullen and other U.S. officials have said Washington needs to keep engaging with Islamabad, a reflection of its limited options in dealing with the nuclear-armed state.

The head of U.S. Central Command, Gen. James Mattis, echoed this sentiment following a meeting with Kayani in Islamabad. In a statement issued Sunday by the U.S. Embassy, Mattis emphasized "the need for persistent engagement among the militaries of the U.S., Pakistan and other states in the region."

Around half of the U.S. war supplies to Afghanistan are trucked over Pakistani soil, and even as it accuses Islamabad of complicity with Afghan insurgents, Washington knows that it will likely need Islamabad's cooperation in bringing them to the negotiating table.

Gilani also called for greater cooperation.

"Let's avoid mutual recrimination and recommit ourselves to working together for eliminating terrorism and for reconciliation and peace in Afghanistan," he said.