Unnamed sources close to the Israeli-Palestinian talks had been quoted by Voice of America as saying that negotiators from the two countries and the US will be meeting late Wednesday in efforts to put the stalled peace talks back on track.
An anonymous senior State Department official also disclosed that Washington remained enthusiastic about if efforts despite the fact that the two Middle Eastern countries had taken unhelpful steps in the last few hours. The official also added that US Secretary of State John Kerry had spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas separately on Wednesday. Moreover, he told reporters in Brussels that neither Israel or the other party were keen to end the peace talks.
The latest developments were spurred from Abbas' surprise decision to sign over a dozen international conventions, which gives Palestinians more leverage against Israel, VOA said. Abbas' move also indicated that Kerry's mediation efforts were not working. Earlier, Kerry set an April 29 deadline for all three to reach basic outlines of a deal between the two countries. However, the talks about the supposed peace pact has been pushed to the end of this year.
Principal Middle East analyst Jordan Perry at the Maplecroft consulting firm in Oxford said about the US' next step, "The prospects in the medium term, over 2014, of a final status agreement are pretty bleak. Secretary Kerry has made clear in recent days...that he feels he's gone really as far as he can in terms of being a mediator between the Israelis and the Palestinians. They now have to bridge this impasse."
On the other hand, senior lecturer Amnon Aran of London's City University is not expecting much from the efforts to revive the peace talks following Abbas' signing of international conventions. "It seems to me that they have been engaging a bit in a charade, all of them."
