Sunday, November 18, 2007

DEBKAfile Exclusive: Tendency builds up in Washington to postpone the Middle East conference for a year

"According to our sources in the US capital, while President Bush has not approved the suggested postponement until late 2008, two of the administration officials in charge of setting up the Maryland event, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and Elliott Abrams, have cancelled engagements connected to the conference and turned to other business. Informed sources in Washington report that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is the only remaining administration figure who still believes in its usefulness as a vehicle for Israel-Palestinian accord......

Palestinian sources stressed gloomily that their and Israeli negotiators have not managed to agree on two sentences.

The growing tendency to postpone the event was further spurred last week, according to DEBKAfile’s sources, by urgent private messages from Saudi Arabia and Jordan. They warned the administration that ,if the Annapolis conference were to be staged as a photo-op of a few hours and avoids core issues of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, as Olmert plans, serious damage would blow back on the Muslim governments backing the US against Iran.

State Department officials advised Rice to answer back that if the conference did not take place, this would reflect badly on the US government as short of the clout for convening a meeting of anti-Iranian Sunni Arab rulers......"

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