U.S. President Barack Obama scolded Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Tuesday for not doing more to unblock the peace process and urged them to relaunch negotiations soon, Reuters reported.
"It is past time to talk about starting negotiations. It is time to move forward," Obama told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who met for the first time since Netanyahu took office in March.
Obama set Middle East peace as a top priority at the start of his presidency in January, in a contrast to his predecessor George W. Bush, who was criticized internationally for neglecting the conflict.
The summit yielded no immediate signs of a breakthrough. It was Obama's most direct intervention into a six-decade conflict that has long defied U.S. diplomatic efforts.
But in a sign that pressure from Obama may yet produce progress, Netanyahu told reporters after the talks that there had been "general agreement that the peace process should resume as soon as possible with no preconditions."
It was unclear how and when that might happen. Netanyahu has resisted U.S. pressure to freeze all Jewish settlement building in the occupied West Bank, a key Palestinian demand.
As the summit got underway, Obama had to coax Netanyahu and Abbas into a handshake, both with strained smiles.
At times sounding frustrated, Obama urged the sides to relaunch stalled peace negotiations without delay.
"My message to these two leaders is clear," Obama said. "Despite all the obstacles, despite all the history, despite all the mistrust, we have to find a way forward."
"Permanent status negotiations must begin and begin soon."
The meeting came one day before Obama's debut before the U.N. General Assembly, but officials downplayed expectations of a major diplomatic shift.
TRYING TO UNBLOCK PEACE PROCESS
Hoping to push the process forward, Obama said his Mideast envoy George Mitchell would meet Israeli and Palestinian negotiators again next week. He also said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would report back to him in October on the status of talks.
Obama said both sides should take positive steps and be ready for compromise.
"Palestinians have strengthened their efforts on security but they need to do more to stop incitement and to move forward with negotiations," he said.
"Israelis have facilitated greater freedom of movement for the Palestinians and have discussed important steps to restrain settlement activity but they need to translate these discussions into reality on this and other issues," he said.
With the sides locked into opposing positions, the New York meeting fell far short of the diplomatic coup White House aides had once hoped for.
Hopes dimmed last week after Mitchell left the region on Friday without reaching a deal with Israel over limits on Jewish settlement construction.
Each side has blamed the other for the failure of Mitchell's mission, which underscored the lack of progress on one of Obama's chief goals.
A reactivated U.S. role in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking is a major part of Obama's effort to repair America's image in the Muslim world.
However, his administration has made little headway in clearing obstacles to talks on a deal to create a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and resolve disputes over the future of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees.
Relations between Washington and its close ally Israel are facing the worst strains in a decade with Netanyahu's right-leaning government resisting U.S. pressure to halt settlement expansion.
Netanyahu, whose coalition has a strong pro-settler wing, has rejected a total cessation of building within settlements, saying the "natural growth" of settler families must be accommodated. Washington has explicitly rejected that argument.
Netanyahu offered Mitchell a nine-month freeze in settlement building in the West Bank, Israeli officials said, but the envoy was pressing for a one-year suspension.
Abbas is demanding an open-ended settlement freeze that also includes East Jerusalem, which Israel captured along with the West Bank in a 1967 war.
Obama said on Tuesday he had told both sides it was time to put an end to the "endless cycle of conflict and suffering."
"We cannot continue the same pattern of taking tentative steps forward and then pulling back," he said.
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