Washington, January 05: The Obama administration is reportedly promoting a plan to reach a final peace settlement between the Palestinians and Israel in two years and agree on permanent borders in nine months.
Citing unnamed sources, Maariv daily said the plan foresees talks between the Palestinians and Israelis to agree on permanent borders in nine months.
“After reaching an agreement on borders, the sides will move on to discuss the other core issues: Jerusalem and refugees,” the Israeli daily said.
Under the plan, the border agreement should be reached before the expiry of a 10-month Israeli moratorium on settlement building in the occupied West Bank.
The Obama administration is reportedly drafting letters of guarantees to encourage both sides to agree the deal.
A Palestinian-Israeli deal would be grounded on the principle of land swap between the two sides.
Under the principle, Israel will keep its major settlement blocks in the West Bank and the Palestinians will get land inside Israel in return.
“If no agreement is reached, the Palestinians will request US backing for their demand to receive an area equal in size to the territory under Arab rule prior to 1967,” Maariv said.
Peace talks between the Palestinians and Israel have stalled since last year’s deadly Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip, which killed 1,400 people and injured thousands.
The Israeli government has rejected US calls to halt settlement construction to help kickstart peace talks with the Palestinians.
Eventually, the Obama administration caved in and abandoned its earlier stance on liking the settlement freeze with the talks re-launch.
There are more than 164 Jewish settlements in the West Bank, eating up more than 40 percent of the occupied territory.
The international community considers all Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian land illegal and a major hurdle to Middle East peace efforts
Opposition
But the Palestinians and Israelis have poured cold water on the reported US peace plan.
“We have not received, neither officially nor in any other form, a plan from the American administration to bring about peace in the region,” Nimr Hamad, an aide to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, told.
“Israel is trying with these media leaks to pressure president Abbas to enter into negotiations without a complete halt to settlements across all the Palestinian territories, including Jerusalem.”
The Palestinians insist on a total Israeli settlement freeze before resuming peace talks.
After talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, Abbas said peace talks would only be resumed after halting Israeli settlement building.
“We have said, and we will continue to say, that when there is a halt of settlement activity and recognized terms of reference, we are ready to resume negotiations,” he said.
There was no immediate comment on the report from US or Egyptian officials.
Israel’s hardline Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman also opposed any timeframe on peace talks with the Palestinians.
“It is not possible to reach an agreement on permanent borders in nine months and a full agreement in two years,” Lieberman said following talks with Quartet envoy Tony Blair.
“What we need to do is begin direct talks without a time frame.”
-Agencies