UNITED NATIONS — U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said at a farewell U.N. appearance Monday that Israel and the Palestinians have moved much further along the path to peace since President George W. Bush brought their leaders together a year ago — though they won’t clinch an agreement by the end of the year.
Rice spoke to reporters after a meeting of the diplomatic Quartet of Mideast peacemakers — the U.S., the U.N., the European Union and Russia — which said the Israeli-Palestinian negotiating process launched by Bush at Annapolis, Md., “is irreversible” and should be intensified to “establish as soon as possible the state of Palestine.”
The Annapolis agreement called for the Israelis and Palestinians to try to end their decades-long conflict and sign a peace agreement by the end of 2008, which would have given Bush a diplomatic victory just before turning the presidency over to Barack Obama.
“They won’t achieve agreement by the end of the year, but they have achieved a good deal of progress in their negotiations, a good deal of progress in the work that is being done on the ground,” Rice said.
“This is the first time in almost a decade that Palestinians and Israelis are addressing all of the core issues in a comprehensive way to try to get to a solution, and if that process takes a little bit longer, so be it,” she said. “But we are very much further along, certainly, than we were in 2001, and I would argue even than in 2007 when Annapolis was concluded.”
The United States and Russia, which have recently been at odds, have joined forces to co-sponsor a U.N. Security Council resolution that would also declare the support of the U.N.’s most important body for the Annapolis process “and its commitment to the irreversibility of the bilateral negotiations.”
The council is scheduled to meet today to adopt the resolution, which U.S. officials said has very wide support.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki- moon hosted a farewell dinner Monday night in Rice’s honor.
The U.N. chief thanked the outgoing U.S. administration, especially Bush and Rice for their “tireless” efforts to advance Israeli-Palestinian negotiations since the Annapolis agreement.
The Security Council is also expected to vote today on a U.S. resolution that would authorize “all necessary measures” against piracy from Somalia.
