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Bush, Olmert leaving with no Mideast peace deal
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Bush, Olmert leaving with no Mideast peace deal
By ARON HELLER,Associated Press Writer AP - Wednesday, November 26
WASHINGTON - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday that Israel and the Palestinians could reach an agreement on the "core issues" of their century-old conflict very soon, despite time running out on both his and President George W. Bush's tenures.
Speaking to reporters a day after his final meeting with Bush, Olmert said the sides were very close on the central issues and that it was time to make decisions.
"I think we are in a situation where we can reach that point, and I want to reach that point," he said. "I am ready and I hope the other side is ready too."
Regardless, Bush and Olmert's lofty Mideast peace goals are ending with a whimper. A year ago, almost exactly to the day, the leaders announced the resumption of peace talks to great fanfare, after a seven-year hiatus, at a Mideast summit hosted in Annapolis, Md. Summit participants set an ambitious target of concluding a final peace deal by the end of 2008.
Despite frequent negotiating sessions, Olmert and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, have little to show for their efforts and seem no closer to a peace agreement than they were before the summit.
Olmert said it could be done relatively soon. "To make decisions, you don't need months," he said.
But time seems to have run out on the leaders. Bush leaves office on Jan. 20 and Olmert's successor will be selected three weeks later. The prime minister announced plans to resign in September amid corruption charges.
In brief comments to reporters before their hourlong talk in the Oval Office, both gave off an air of nostalgia, thanking each other profusely for their friendship and dedication to peace, and pledging to leave behind a productive peace process for their successors when they leave office.
"We've been through a lot together during our time in office," Bush said. "We strongly believe that Israel will benefit by having a Palestinian state, a democracy on her border that works for peace."
Turning to Olmert, he said: "I want to thank you for the friendship, and thank you for your vision. And I just want you to know that I believe that vision is alive."
Speaking Tuesday, Olmert reiterated his commitment to the two-state solution and said he expected progress to continue after both he and Bush leave office.
Aaron David Miller, a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center, said "The Bush administration leaves its Arab-Israeli diplomacy certainly in better shape than they got it," when President Bill Clinton departed and a violent Palestinian uprising raged.
President-elect Barack Obama now inherits the reins, but with hardline opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu seemingly poised to win Israeli elections in February, and the Hamas militant group's continued control of the Gaza Strip, the future of peace talks appears murky.
Besides the peace process, Olmert said the ongoing threat from Iran's nuclear program was a central topic of his discussions with Bush.
Israel sees Iran as its biggest national security threat, because of its development of long-range weapons and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's repeated calls for the destruction of the Jewish state. It believes Iran will be capable of building a bomb by 2010.
The U.N. Security Council has imposed three rounds of economic penalties on Iran, which insists its nuclear program is peaceful and designed to produce energy. Both the U.S. and Israel say they hope diplomatic pressure resolves the standoff, but they have not ruled out military action.
"I can say there is a deep, basic understanding between us about the Iranian threat and the need to act in order to remove that threat," Olmert said. "I don't remember anyone in the administration, including the last couple of days, advising me or any of my official representatives not to take any action that we deem necessary for the fundamental security of Israel, and that includes Iran."
Olmert, who did not speak with Obama during his three-day visit to Washington, said Obama's stance against Iran acquiring a nuclear weapons was fundamentally no different from that of Bush, and he expected U.S.-Israeli relations to remain unchanged in the next administration.
(This version CORRECTS last graf to correct by saying that Olmert did not speak with Obama. Moving on general news and financial services.)
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