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JERUSALEM – The U.S. and
Israel agreed ahead of a three-way meeting with the Palestinians to shun any new Palestinian government that does not renounce violence, recognize Israel and accept existing peace agreements, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday.
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The so-called Quartet of Mideast negotiators — the U.S.,
European Union, U.N. and Russia — has set these demands as a condition for lifting crippling international sanctions. The platform of a new Palestinian power-sharing agreement, reached in Saudi Arabia earlier this month, speaks only of “respect” for existing peace deals.
Moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Olmert are to meet separately on Sunday with Secretary
Condoleezza Rice ahead of their three-way meeting on Monday. In a further indication of tensions before the meeting, Rice and Abbas canceled a press conference that had been scheduled to follow their one-on-one talks, Abbas office said.
Before meeting with Abbas, Rice told reporters the two would discuss the power-sharing agreement, as well as prospects for peace.
The purpose of the meeting Monday would be to “examine the current situation and to commit — recommit — to existing agreements but also to begin to explore and probe the political and diplomatic horizon,” she said.
The summit on Monday was initially billed as an attempt to revive long-stalled peace talks. But friction over the power-sharing deal has eclipsed that.
Olmert said at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting that he and
President Bush had spoken by phone on Friday about the deal and agreed the Palestinians had to go further.
“A Palestinian government that wont accept the Quartet conditions wont receive recognition and cooperation,” Olmert said. “The American and Israeli positions are totally identical on this issue.”
Neither Washington nor Israel have said, however, that they would boycott Abbas, who, as head of the
Palestine Liberation Organization, would represent the Palestinians in any peace talks.