The Arab League said Saturday that it would continue to support the Palestinian-Israeli indirect peace talks, after receiving encouragement from the mediator, the United States, according to dpa. Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jasim bin Jabir al-Thani, whose country heads the Arab Peace Initiative committee, told reporters that "we communicated with the US mediator and found positive signs." "We trust the mediators, and believe they are doing their best to bridge the gap between the Palestinians and Israeli," Sheikh Hamad said after a meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo to discuss the prospects of indirect Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. The meeting came one day after US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced that indirect peace talks would start next week and that the US envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, would return to the region. In March, Arab states said they would give the US four months to start the indirect peace talks. With only two months left, Sheikh Hamad said that the four-month period would not be extended. But this could change if there were signs of progress. "If there is hope we can extend the period. The Palestinian cause is 60 years old, a few more months are acceptable," he said. Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said that consultations would continue within the agreed time frame. "We also agreed that there will not be an automatic transmission from indirect to direct talks except after we discuss whether the situation in Palestine allows it or not," Moussa told a joint press briefing, with Sheikh Hamad and chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. Shortly after the Arab League announced it backed a US proposal to start "proximity talks" between the Israelis and Palestinians as a precursor for direct talks between the two sides, the decision was rescinded over an Israeli plan to build housing in contested East Jerusalem. Erekat said that Israel should choose either "settlements or peace". "They cannot have both," Erekat added. Earlier on Saturday, Syria-based Palestinian factions called on the Arab League committee not to support "the resumption of negotiations with the Israeli enemy." The ten factions, headed by Hamas, warned of the implications of either direct or indirect negotiations. "We consider any Palestinian or Arab decision to resume talks is to hide crimes committed by the occupation," they said in a statement. In a letter to the Arab League before the meeting, Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi had urged his counterparts to raise the Arab-Israeli conflict with the United Nations Security Council, sources close to the meeting said. "Israeli measures form a serious threat to world stability and security, making it necessary for the Security Council to take responsibility and force Israel to stop its violations, lift the siege on Gaza and accept the two-state solution in accordance with international resolutions." "Israeli practices continue at an accelerated pace, proving, beyond any doubt, that Israel is imposing its unilateral solutions that aim at, from our point of view, terminating the Palestinian cause, which requires a strong and effective Arab stand," al-Qirbi said. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas needs Arab backing to ward off internal Palestinian criticism over entering into talks with a hardline Israeli government, without having first had his preconditions met, notably a full freeze of Israeli construction in both the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israeli-Palestinian talks have been on hold since late 2008.
