Israeli Minister Sees No Palestinian State in the Offing

JERUSALEM (June 29) -- As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares for a meeting with President Barack Obama in Washington next week, his hard-line foreign minister has made a statement that could throw a wrench into the Obama administration's efforts to advance indirect Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

"As an optimist, I see no chance that a Palestinian state will be established by 2012," Avigdor Lieberman said at a news conference with visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. "We can express interest, we can dream, but in reality, we are still far from reaching understandings and agreements on establishing an independent state by 2012."

Both U.S. and Palestinian officials have said they would like to see an independent Palestinian state by 2012.

It was not clear if Lieberman was expressing a new Israeli policy, and Netanyahu's spokesman declined to comment. But Palestinian government spokesman Ghassan Khatib quickly condemned the foreign minister's statement.

"Lieberman is issuing a challenge to the international community, which is in agreement on the two-year ceiling," he said.

Special Mideast peace envoy George Mitchell was due to arrive in Israel today for a fifth round of indirect "proximity" talks, in which he shuttles between Israeli and Palestinian officials. Previous rounds have made little progress, and Israeli media today quoted U.S. diplomats as saying that the U.S. is losing its patience with Israel.

Lieberman, who spoke standing next to his Russian counterpart, also publicly disagreed with his guest over Russia's efforts to engage the Islamist Hamas movement, which controls Gaza, in a dialogue. Lavrov recently met senior Hamas officials in Damascus, Syria, and reminded Lieberman that Hamas won Palestinian elections in 2006.

"Russia is doing the right thing by contacting Hamas," Lavrov said. "In all our talks with Hamas, we have tried to convince them to switch to the political track and support the Arab peace initiative."

The Arab peace plan calls on dozens of Arab and Muslim states to establish diplomatic relations with Israel in exchange for a complete Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

Israel and the U.S. say that Hamas is a terrorist organization and have refused to deal with it.

"It is not a secret that we don't agree about this," Lieberman shot back after Lavrov's statement about Hamas. "The approach to Hamas is definitely one of the points on which we do not agree."

The Israeli and Russian foreign ministers also discussed Iran's nuclear program. Netanyahu has called Iran's drive to produce nuclear weapons an "existential threat" to Israel. On Monday, the CIA issued a new assessment saying that Iran has enough uranium to make two nuclear bombs within two years.

Lavrov today said that the information is not new and that the International Atomic Energy Agency has already said Iran has 2,000 kilograms of uranium enriched to a low level. That is enough for two bombs if it is further enriched.

Lavrov said Russia has offered to give Iran nuclear fuel if it will agree to stop uranium enrichment.