Mideast proceeding towards peace by year end, U.S. president announces from Germany, France

Prince Saudi Alfaisal: Obama speech balanced, positive, asserted change in U.S. policies

Erekat says Washington to announce plan in months to end 1967 occupation

Netanyahu replies to Obama, Israeli circles bet Arabs won't respond

U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel vowed to press ahead with efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and work together to persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear drive.

Speaking at a joint press conference in Dresden, Germany, Obama said that the “moment is now for us to act on what we all know to be the truth”, urging both Israelis and Palestinians to make concessions, according to Reuters.

“The United States cannot solve this problem. Ultimately the parties involved are going to have to make a decision” to move forward, he cautioned, according to the New York Times.

Obama added that he was confident that there would be “some serious progress this year” on the issue.

Merkel expressed hope that Obama’s efforts could kick-start the stalled peace talks.

“I believe that with the new U.S. administration… there is a unique opportunity to see to it that the negotiation process is revived,” Merkel was quoted by Reuters as saying.

Obama and Merkel, who will pay homage to the victims of the Holocaust when they tour the Buchenwald concentration camp later, also discussed the nuclear standoff with Iran.

Obama, who was speaking a day after offering the Muslim world a “new beginning” with the United States, said that Washington was ready to engage in “serious dialogue” with Tehran to resolve the nuclear dispute.

“We must avoid a nuclear arms race in the Middle East,” he told reporters, according to Reuters.

For her part, Merkel pledged to use Berlin’s “expert knowledge” as one of the key European negotiators with Tehran to settle the standoff, the BBC reported.

The two leaders also discussed the global financial crisis, climate change, the situation in Afghanistan, and the fate of detainees at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay.

In Germany, Obama will later meet with US troops injured on active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan at the US military hospital in Landstuhl.

He will then travel to France, where he will meet President Nicolas Sarkozy and attend D-Day commemorations in Normandy.

President Obama on Friday intensified his pledge to unlock the Middle East stalemate, sending an envoy next week to pursue his call for a two-state solution, as he toured a former concentration camp that he said served as a lesson to “be ever-vigilant about the spread of evil in our own time.”

The president met with Merkel on the contentious issues of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, the nuclear program in Iran and the global financial crisis. But he quickly moved to the next stop of a trip built on his biography, visiting the site of Buchenwald, not far from where his great-uncle helped liberate prisoners in World War II.

“To this day, there are those who insist that the Holocaust never happened — a denial of fact and truth that is baseless and ignorant and hateful,” Obama said. “This place is the ultimate rebuke to such thoughts, a reminder of our duty to confront those who would tell lies about our history.”

The poignant imagery, which was broadcast on television here, was intended to underscore what Obama had described the day before in Cairo as America’s “unbreakable” bond with Israel. His speech there, which also called for two states, angered some in Israel because of his forceful opposition to expanding existing settlements on the West Bank.

The president said Friday that “the moment is now” to begin aggressively seeking a Middle East peace settlement. In addition to sending his envoy, George J. Mitchell, to the region, Obama also put Israelis and Palestinians on notice that it was up to them to make “difficult compromises.”

“The Palestinian have to get serious about creating a security environment that is required for Israel to feel confident,” he said. “Israelis are going to have to take some difficult steps.”

He added: “Ultimately, the United States can’t force peace upon the parties, but what we’ve tried to do is to clear away some of the misunderstandings so we can at least begin to have frank dialogue.”

At a joint press conference at Dresden Castle, the German and American leaders dismissed suggestions that their relationship was chilly.

An early issue of contention between them was diverging approaches for solving the financial crisis. The two leaders talked about an economic stimulus, aides to Obama said, with Merkel specifically calling for “an exit strategy.” In principle, Obama agreed, his aides said, but no closure was reached. They pledged to work together on climate change, on Middle East peace and on trying to persuade Iran to abandon what the West fears is a nuclear program to build an atomic bomb, but which Tehran says is for civilian purposes.

“With President Barack Obama," Merkel said, “there is actually a unique opportunity now to see to it that this peace process — or let’s perhaps be more careful — this negotiation process is to be revived again.”

There was no sign of progress on Washington’s desire for Europeans to accept prisoners from Guantánamo Bay, as Obama moves to redeem a pledge to close the detention center in Cuba. Merkel said that she was pleased by the administration’s effort to close the prison, but that a decision had not been made about accepting detainees.

“I don’t anticipate it’s going to be resolved in the next two or three months,” Obama said.

The overnight stop in Dresden, in addition to the bilateral meeting with the chancellor, served as a bookend for the president’s address in Cairo. In many ways, Germany is an ideal location for the themes of reconciliation and fresh starts that Obama struck in calling for a new alliance to the Islamic world.

As Obama noted in Dresden, Germany went from a fascist dictatorship to a successful democracy, one prepared to publicly admit past mistakes and learn from them in perhaps a more comprehensive way than any other nation. The message was embodied by Merkel’s appearance at Buchenwald.

Indeed, it was Buchenwald, perhaps more than anywhere else, that embodied the contradiction of a civilized society’s descent into organized barbarism. The camp sits just a few miles outside Weimar, one of the country’s leading cultural centers.

As he walked by the crematory ovens, barbed-wire fences and guard towers at Buchenwald, Obama called the site the “ultimate rebuke” to those who deny or seek to minimize the Holocaust. He paid tribute to those who died at the camp and others, saying, “They could not have known how the nation of Israel would rise out of the destruction of the Holocaust and the strong, enduring bonds between that great nation and my own.”

With his hands behind his back, Obama walked through the former concentration camp, flanked by Merkel and Elie Wiesel, a Nobel peace prize winner, writer and Holocaust survivor, who lived through a death march from Auschwitz to Buchenwald and was at the camp when it was liberated in April 1945.

Wiesel spoke movingly about the death of his father a few months before the liberation of the camp, calling his journey there “a way of coming and visiting my father’s grave.” He added, “But he had no grave. His grave is somewhere in the sky, which has become in those years the largest cemetery of the Jewish people.”

Obama also seized upon a personal connection to the camp. His great-uncle, Charles Payne, helped liberate a sub-camp of Buchenwald called Ohrdruf. Merkel, who like Wiesel and Obama laid a long-stemmed white rose in memory of the dead, spoke of the German responsibility “to do everything possible that something like that never happens again.” She added, “I bow before all the victims.”

Volkhard Knigge, who directs the Buchenwald foundation and led Obama and Merkel on their tour, said he believed the president’s visit to the site and his speech in Cairo were linked.

“He wanted to underline that he will take a real dialogue very seriously, but on the other hand a real dialogue does not mean appeasement, toward dictatorship or anti-Semitism,” Knigge said in an interview after the tour.

The fierce, and still contentious, aerial bombing in Dresden at the end of World War II destroyed the baroque Frauenkirche, or Church of Our Lady, which the president and Merkel visited on Friday, stopping for a brief prayer.

Although they spent several hours together, their appearances renewed speculation here about how friendly they really were beyond the diplomatic smiles and handshakes.

Obama dismissed the suggestion that his relationship with Merkel was strained. Asked by a German television reporter about it, he playfully admonished the press. “Stop it, all of you,” Obama said. “We have more than enough problems out there without manufacturing problems.”

Meanwhile, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saudi Alfaisal said in an interview published on June 6 that Washington could use its aid as a lever to push Israel into a two-state settlement with the Palestinians.

“The United States has the means to persuade the Israelis to work for a peaceful settlement,” Prince Saud told Newsweek magazine. “It needs to tell them that if it is going to continue to help them, they must be reasonable and make reasonable concessions.”

Asked if Washington should cut off aid to Israel, Prince Saud replied: “Why not? If you give aid to someone and they indiscriminately occupy other people’s lands, you bear some responsibility.”

The interview was conducted Friday, a day after US President Barack Obama’s landmark address to the Muslim world in Cairo.

Prince Saud praised Obama’s “sincerity” and his calling Israel’s expansion of West Bank settlements as “not legitimate,” but said the speech “has yet to be translated into actions.” And he fended off Washington’s call for Arab states to make diplomatic overtures to Israel to get new peace negotiations off the ground.

“We don’t have anything to offer Israel except normalization, and if we put that before the return of Arab land we are giving away the only chip in the hands of Arab countries,” Prince Saud said.

In Caen, France, Obama said he wanted to see “serious, constructive” Middle East peace talks this year aimed at finding a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians.

On the final leg of a brief tour of the Middle East and Europe, Obama was asked to clarify what he meant the previous day in Germany when he said he was confident progress could be made between the Palestinians and Israel this year.

“Progress would mean the parties involved ... are in serious, constructive negotiations toward a two-state solution,” Obama told reporters after a meeting with his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy in Normandy ahead of a ceremony to mark the 65th anniversary of the World War II D-Day landings.

“I do not expect that a 60-year problem is solved overnight but, as I have said before, I do expect both sides to recognize that their fates are tied together,” he added.

Obama has called for a freeze in settlements and pressed for a two-state solution, both of which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has resisted.

But Obama also said that while the media had made much of his comments on settlements, he also wanted the Palestinians to renounce “violence and incitement.”

“We have to move beyond the current stalemate,” he added.

Obama underlined the need for “tough diplomacy” in dealing with Iran’s nuclear program and said he would be firm with North Korea as well after its second atomic bomb explosion.

Obama has said he is prepared to hold talks with Tehran “without preconditions” in a bid to ensure that it does not use its advanced nuclear technology to develop weapons.

Iran says it is only trying to meet its booming demand for electricity.

Obama said France was being firm with Iran. He praised “France’s leadership in Europe in understanding the need for us to have tough diplomacy with the Iranians, to reach out to them and also insist that we can’t afford to have a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.”

Iran has so far spurned approaches by six world powers — France, Britain, Germany, the United States, China and Russia — that have offered a package of incentives aimed at convincing it to abandon uranium enrichment, which can produce fuel for power plants or, potentially, nuclear weapons.

Sarkozy met Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki in Paris last week. Mottaki delivered a message from “the highest Iranian authorities” and said Tehran was finalizing a counterproposal to the package, a French official said.

With Iran’s presidential elections just six days away, Sarkozy said he told Mottaki Iran needed to agree to talks soon. “I told him that they have to seize the hand stretched out by Barack Obama, set a date so that the Group of Six (powers) can begin to talk,” Sarkozy added.

Veteran Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said on Friday that the U.S. administration will declare a plan in the coming few months to achieve peace in the Middle East.

Erekat told the Ramallah-based al-Ayyam daily that the U.S. plan aims at implementing the goal of the peace process "which is ending the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories that began in 1967."

He said the Road Map peace plan has specified the goal of the Middle East peace process, which is to end the Israeli occupation.

"Consequently, what is needed now is not to present a new initiative, but to agree on the mechanisms and set up the timetable to implement it, moreover, sending inspectors to observe the implementation of this goal," Erekat told the daily.

On Thursday, U.S. President Barack Obama delivered a speech to the Muslims and Arabs, in which he vowed that the Middle East peace process would be resumed and that a Palestinian state will be established.

"In this respect, the Palestinian (National) Authority is ready to fulfill its commitments, mainly the vision of the two-state solution, the legal weapon and rebuilding and reforming our establishments," said Erekat.

On Monday, Obama will send his Mideast peace envoy George Mitchell to the region, where he would hold talks with both Israeli and Palestinian officials to discuss the possibilities of resuming the peace negotiations.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the PNA insist that the resumption of the peace talks with Israel has to be preceded by an end to settlement activities and recognition of the U.S.-backed vision of the two-state solution.

On the other hand, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he will deliver a major policy address next week laying out his proposed road to Mideast peace, after coming under stiff U.S. pressure to freeze West Bank settlement construction and endorse Palestinian statehood.

Netanyahu offered no hint of what he might say. Bound by his hard-line coalition and his own ideology, the Israeli leader has resisted the U.S. demands so far, deepening an unusually public face-off with Israel's most important ally.

"It must be understood, we seek peace with the Palestinians and with the states of the Arab world while trying to reach as much understanding as possible with the United States and our friends abroad," the Israeli leader said at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting.

"Next week I will make an important policy speech in which I will present to the citizens of Israel our principles on achieving this peace and security," he said.

The Palestinians want the West Bank and Gaza Strip for their future state and say they won't renew peace talks until Israel agrees to freeze settlement construction and negotiate Palestinian statehood.

President Barack Obama's administration hopes that halting settlement expansion would encourage the Arab world to make overtures toward Israel, as well as improving U.S. relations with Arab states. In speeches last week in Egypt and Europe, Obama pressed hard for a settlement freeze and a two-state solution.

Israel has claimed that it reached unofficial agreements with former President George W. Bush's administration to keep building in some existing settlements. It has also cited a 2004 letter signed by Bush saying any peace deal would recognize "new realities on the ground" in the West Bank, seen as a reference to main settlement blocs close to Israel.

Many of the understandings were reached between 2001 and 2003, according to Dov Weisglass, who was a top aide to then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The Bush administration agreed to allow construction within the boundaries of existing settlements, Weisglass told Army Radio.

However, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Sunday that the White House would not recognize past informal understandings. "That was never made a part of the official record of the negotiations," Clinton said in comments broadcast on ABC-TV.

The U.S. pressure is pushing Netanyahu into a difficult position, caught between preserving Israel's crucial alliance with Washington while placating his coalition government, dominated by hardliners. Netanyahu's own long-held commitment to Israeli rule over the West Bank is also a factor.

Since Israel signed its first accord with the Palestinians in 1993, the West Bank settler population has more than doubled to nearly 300,000. An additional 180,000 Jews live in neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, which Palestinians claim as capital of their hoped-for state.

Obama plans to dispatch his special Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, to the region this week to try to break the impasse.

Mitchell has long seen a settlement freeze as intrinsic to progress on peacemaking.

While fending off U.S. pressure for a settlement freeze, Israel has dismantled several checkpoints that hindered Palestinian movement. On Sunday, troops removed two checkpoints around the town of Qalqiliya, home to 50,000 Palestinians. Last week Israel tore down two other checkpoints.

Hundreds of checkpoints and unmanned roadblocks still dot the West Bank. Israel says they are a key part of a successful military strategy that has slashed Palestinian attacks, while Palestinians charge that they cripple trade and movement.

Meanwhile Sunday, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said the Palestinian Authority is not receiving enough aid to balance the budget, has been forced to take loans and now owes banks between $600 million-$700 million.

"We are not very far from hitting the brick wall," Fayyad told The Associated Press after a news conference in Oslo.

He spoke on the eve of a donor conference there.

Many economic analysts say Arab donors have been reluctant to pay up because of Palestinian infighting between Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah, which controls the West Bank, and the Islamic militant Hamas, which took Gaza two years ago.

In a separate development Sunday, Israel awarded $82,000 in compensation to 50 Palestinian families whose properties were damaged in rioting by Jewish settlers last year in the West Bank city of Hebron, according to military spokesman Maj. Guy Inbar.

The settlers went on a rampage last December to protest their forced eviction from a disputed building.

Israeli authorities also prevented from entering a contingent of protesters dressed like clowns from entering the blockaded Gaza Strip, including a group calling itself the Israeli Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army.

Among the protesters was Hunter Campbell Adams, better known as Patch Adams, a U.S. doctor and clown who was the subject of a 1998 Hollywood film. The protesters brought toys they said they hoped to bring to children in Gaza.

The military said the group had not requested permission to enter Gaza.