Sunday, October 11, 2009

Mitchell visit brings no visible success

(JPost).The prime minister met on Sunday afternoon with Mitchell, who wrapped up a five-day visit to the region without announcing any movement toward his elusive goal of putting together a package that would enable the restart of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. They also met on Friday.

The Prime Minister's Office, which has taken to providing almost no details of the Mitchell-Netanyahu meetings, put out a laconic statement saying the two men, joined by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, met for more than an hour, and "continued their discussions on moving the peace process forward."

The statement said that Netanyahu's envoy Yitzhak Molcho, as well as Barak's chief of staff Michael Herzog, would travel to Washington later this week to continue the discussions.

Mitchell flew to Egypt on Saturday night for talks with Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit and intelligence chief Omar Suleiman.

"Everyone who truly believes in peace has to take responsibility to take actions to achieve that goal," Mitchell said in Egypt.