Kerry's peace plan rejected

United States Secretary of State John Kerry was yesterday preparing to leave the Middle East as Palestinian leaders rejected his plan to resume the stalled peace talks.

The setback for the US plan came from the governing Revolutionary Council of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' own Fatah movement, which demanded changes.

The broader Palestine Liberation Organisation, which includes left-wing factions less sympathetic to a compromise, said it was also drawing up a formal response to Kerry's proposals.

Palestinian member of Parliament Mustafa Barghuti said "most factions" within the PLO had rejected Kerry's proposal.

"It is appropriate and encouraging that there is such a serious debate about these issues," a senior State Department official said yesterday.

While Washington understood that "there are many strongly held views and [we] appreciate efforts to find a basis to move forward", Kerry would go ahead with plans to leave.

"During the leadership meeting ... most of the Palestinian factions ... rejected restarting peace talks based on Kerry's proposals," said Barghuti.

PLO executive committee member Wasel Abu Yusef said the Palestinian leadership had "decided to form a committee to respond to Kerry's proposals".

"Kerry did not present guarantees to stop settlement building, nor base [peace talks] on 1967 borders," he said.

Kerry's plan would have seen Israel, now ruled by a coalition that has tilted sharply to the right after elections this year, make only a tacit commitment to slow settlement construction in the occupied territories, not the publicly announced freeze long demanded by Abbas.

On Thursday, the US envoy had expressed cautious optimism that he was making progress towards a deal to restart talks after his proposals were endorsed by Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi and senior Gulf Arab diplomats. But he acknowledged there were still differences over "the language" governing any resumption of talks.

A senior Fatah official said the party wanted changes to what Abbas had agreed.

"Fatah wants to make some alterations to Kerry's plan ... because the proposed ideas are not encouraging for a return to negotiations," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The announcement came after two rounds of intensive talks between Kerry and Abbas, who is also Fatah leader. It was the top US diplomat's sixth visit to the region since he took office in February to try to broker a compromise to allow a resumption of direct peace talks that have been frozen by Israel's refusal to agree to a new suspension of settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank.

Israel had rejected Palestinian demands for a publicly stated freeze on all settlement construction in the occupied territories as a condition for resuming talks, and Abbas and his negotiating team had referred the idea to his party leadership.

US President Barack Obama yesterday urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resume negotiations with the Palestinians "as soon as possible", the White House said.

- AFP