Olmert "very serious"

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Wednesday that he expected only a framework of a peace deal could be reached with Palestinians by the end of the year.

"What we are trying to achieve is to reach a very accurate outline and definition of all basis parametres of a two-state solution," Olmert said at a meeting with the foreign press.

"I think that the understandings about the basic parameters that will define accurately the outline of a two-state solution, such an understanding can be reached within the current presidency," he said.

But he added: "These are not empty talks. We are very serious."

....

"Negotiations with the Israeli side are continuing and are covering all the questions related to the final status without exception," Abbas said at a press conference with visiting Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov.

"We are all determined to achieve results," he said.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is due back in the region on Friday...

... Abbas has received an invitation from Bush to travel to Washington on April 24.

And as if all that weren't enough, the article goes on to say...

The peace talks are based on the internationally-drafted 2003 roadmap, which calls on Israel to freeze construction of settlements in the occupied West Bank and on the Palestinians to improve security.

Actually, that's not what the Roadmap says, but these "peace talks" are so loosely based on the Roadmap that there's no relationship left whatsoever; the Roadmap was, after all, Performance-Based.

As such, it is at this point about as relevant as the Bush Letter. The only thing that seems to have really stuck is the Disengagement.

Now I really do QUIT.

Comments

[yonason]

Olmert is "serious" all right. Seriously disturbed.