RAMALLAH, October 26 (JMCC) - In a bid that almost no one expects to succeed, international representatives of the Quartet working group will meet separately Wednesday with Israeli and Palestinian officials to explore the prospect of renewing bilateral negotiations.
The Quartet - representing the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and United States - is trying to work out a formula that would head off Palestinians' request for membership at the United Nations last month.
The UN bid is almost certain to be vetoed by the United States at the Security Council, but the Quartet is trying to prevent this showdown by restarting talks,
reports the Associated Press.
The Palestinian official who was to meet with the Quartet sounded gloomy about prospects for resuming peacemaking.
“We have no expectations of this meeting because the Quartet has no vision of how to move the peace process forward,” Saeb Erekat told Voice of Palestine Radio on Wednesday.
The Palestinians rejected a Quartet proposal to have Erekat meet face to face with the Israeli official Yitzhak Molcho.
They refuse to resume direct talks until Israel agrees to freeze construction on captured lands the Palestinians claim for a future state. They also want to base talks on the contours of a future Palestinian state on lines Israel held before capturing east Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel rejects both conditions.