UNITED NATIONS — President Barack Obama’s meetings Tuesday with the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Authority signaled his impatience with months of stalemate in the quest for Middle East peace, as well as his desire to move beyond talks about settlement construction and straight to negotiations on the final shape of the region.
In private, one-on-one discussions, Obama chided Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for their failure to make progress in negotiations that could end decades of violence between their people, officials familiar with the talks said.
“Permanent status negotiations must begin and begin soon,” Obama said before the meetings with both men. “It is past time to talk about starting negotiations. It is time to move forward.”
Obama first met separately with Netanyahu and Abbas, before hosting trilateral talks. Abbas and Netanyahu shook hands at the start.
The blunt message from the U.S. president suggests that his administration has grown weary of failed efforts to resolve disputes about settlement construction and other issues before moving to broader peace talks.
Since taking office, Obama had sought to “set the context” for overall peace talks by first negotiating a freeze on Israeli settlements and security improvements by Palestinians.
To that end, former Sen. George Mitchell, Obama’s Middle East envoy, in June laid out a series of what he called “meaningful steps” that Israelis and Palestinians must take before resuming peace talks.
Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton also have criticized the settlement expansion in unusually tough terms, leading to tension in the generally close U.S.-Israel relationship.
But U.S. officials familiar with Tuesday’s meetings on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly said Obama has now made it clear he does not want to wait for resolution of those issues before resuming negotiations about creating two independent states.
“This phase really needs to come to an end,” said one senior White House official who is deeply involved in the Middle East discussions. After hosting the meetings, Obama announced that Israeli and Palestinian negotiators would return to Washington next week to hold further discussions. And the president said that Clinton would report back to him on the status of those discussions by mid-October.
But comments from Netanyahu and Abbas suggested that little had changed.
“In today’s meetings we confirmed our positions and commitment to the road map and its implementation. We also demanded that the Israeli side fulfill its commitments on settlements, including on natural growth,” Abbas said in a statement after the talks.
Abbas has in the past refused to return to peace talks unless Israel freezes settlement growth in Palestinian territories.
Netanyahu, who heads a right-leaning government, has attempted a balancing act, authorizing settlement expansion planning while appearing open to the idea of a freeze.
