Israeli political sources affirmed last night that no joint Palestinian-Israeli statement will be issued at Annapolis Conference at the end of this month. The Palestinian sources also said this is the most likely scenario, pointing to the Israeli intransigent position on the various issues that made it impossible for both sides to reach an agreement or even to agree on one clause. The Israeli sources said the lack of progress in the negotiations might push the Israelis and Palestinians to issue separate statements in which each side will detail its goals expected from the negotiations that will be launched after Annapolis in order to reach a peace treaty. Israeli Yediot Ahronot newspaper website quoted an Israeli official saying: so far, we have no joint statement or even a draft statement; the Palestinians returned to square one… to the first day of the negotiations.

Palestinian sources said the Israeli side prevented reaching an agreement on a joint statement because it refuses to include the Arab Peace Initiative as one of the terms of reference of the negotiations to be launched after Annapolis and refuses to determine a clear time ceiling for ending the negotiations and stresses on including the Jewish state in the joint statement and sets a condition that any agreement to be reached must be linked to guarantees on the security of the state of Israel first, and refuses the formation of a trilateral Palestinian-Israeli-American committee for the implementation of the first phase of the roadmap. This development coincides with the American position which downplayed earlier the importance of reaching a joint statement before Annapolis. Israeli officials said not having a joint statement does not mean the collapse of the talks; Annapolis will launch the negotiations over the final situations and as long as the situation is like, there is no need for a joint statement. It is enough to know that there 40 representatives of 45 countries in the conference and the majority of them will be Foreign Ministers.

Israeli sources expect handing out the invitations to the parties on Tuesday.

Published at Al Ayyam NewsPaper on November 19, 2007