Kerry says making progress in Mideast peace drive

Protester climbs Israel's controversial separation barrier in West Bank US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday he has made "significant progress" in marathon talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders amid fears Israeli settlements could derail the peace process. Kerry pledged that he "absolutely" believed a final agreement on all the most difficult issues could be reached but he did not rule out the possibility of first striking an interim deal.
"We made significant progress in our discussions about a couple of the areas of concern in the panorama of the concerns that exist," Kerry told reporters in Amman after talks with King Abdullah II and Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh.
He flew to Jordan after holding more than 10 hours of shuttle diplomacy between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Bethlehem in a bid to keep the negotiations on track.
Direct talks broke down between negotiating teams on Tuesday amid a bitter row that has erupted over Israeli moves during the past week to push ahead with construction of more than 3,700 new settler homes.
Kerry appeared upbeat after his talks with King Abdullah II. "We've created some clarity on some of the points," he said. "I was pleased".
But he later refused to outline any specifics to reporters in line with a pledge by all sides that the talks would be carried out under a news blackout.
Doing the negotiations "secretly... gives the leaders the ability to be able to explore different possibilities," Kerry said.
Without going into detail, the top US diplomat said they were beginning to "surface ideas," which shed light on "what range they have for moving, and what possibilities there are for another alternative or for something you haven't thought of".
"And that brings the clarity to the range of choices that you have, and therefore defines in a sense the needle that you have to thread as you are proceeding forward."
Abdullah praised Kerry for winning international trust and said his assurances were critical to ensuring the success of the Middle East peace process.
"I think that the main thing is the trust in you," the king told Kerry, who is scheduled later in the day to hold another round of talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, this time in Amman.
Previously Unscheduled Breakfast Meeting
As Kerry doubles down on efforts to bridge the gaps he will return to Jerusalem on Friday for a previously unscheduled breakfast meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
It was not immediately clear if he fly back to the Jordanian capital where he had been due to spend the night before leaving as planned for the United Arab Emirates on Saturday.
Israeli media reported this week that Israeli negotiators told their Palestinian counterparts the separation barrier that cuts through the West Bank should serve as the border of a future Palestinian state.
No Palestinian agreement to condone settlements
The Palestinians insist the borders be based on the lines that existed before the 1967 Six Day War, when Israel seized Gaza, the West Bank and Arab east Jerusalem.
Israeli press reports also mooted a new US approach that would see Washington presenting the sides with a proposal for an interim agreement -- something Kerry has already emphatically denied.
On Thursday Kerry told reporters that an interim agreement would not be out of the question. It "might be a step along the way," but "only if it embraces the concept of a final status", he said.
"But you cannot just do an interim agreement and pretend you are dealing with the problem," he said.
"We've been there before. We've had interim agreements, we've had road maps. But if you leave the main issues hanging out there, mischief makers will the most of that and bad things will happen in the interval that then make it even harder to get to the final status."
Netanyahu on Wednesday denounced the Palestinians accusing them of creating "artificial crises" over Israel's continued settlement construction on land they want for their future state.
The Israeli leader told Kerry, who was on his seventh visit to Israel and the West Bank since February, that he was "concerned about the progress" of the talks.
Source: AFP