US wants Mideast talks to start soon, end quickly

JERUSALEM (Reuters/AFP) - US wants the stalled Middle East peace talks to resume soon and wrap up quickly, US envoy George Mitchell told Israeli leaders on Tuesday on his latest trip to the region, promising the Jewish state its alliance with the United States would remain strong despite differences.
"We all share an obligation to create the conditions for the prompt resumption and early conclusion of negotiations," Mitchell said at a meeting with Israeli President Shimon Peres.
"We're now engaged in serious discussions with our Israeli and Palestinian and regional partners to support these efforts," said Mitchell, who also met Defence Minister Ehud Barak. In the most public rift between the US and Israel in a decade, US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are at odds over Jewish settlement expansion and the Israeli leader's reluctance to endorse Palestinian statehood.
With Israelis fearing that Obama hoped to repair his country's image among Arabs by fostering a dispute with Netanyahu, Mitchell spoke in conciliatory terms to reporters. "Let me be clear. These are not disagreements among adversaries. The US and Israel are and will remain close allies and friends," Mitchell said.
Mitchell, Obama's special envoy to the Middle East, reaffirmed Washington's commitment to the establishment of a Palestinian state "side by side in peace and security with the Jewish state of Israel". Israeli President Peres, whose post is largely ceremonial, echoed Obama, saying it was time "to take the bull by the horns" and pursue "a state for us and state for the Palestinians".
The envoy quizzed Barak on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, illegal under international law and the cause of a major rift between the US and Israel. Mitchell, who arrived in Israel accompanied by Frederick Hoff, his adviser on Syria, also pressed Barak to reopen talks with its eastern neighbour.
Meanwhile, US peace envoy Mitchell is to visit Syria for the first time this week as the Obama Administration steps up its diplomatic engagement with key player Damascus, a senior official said Tuesday.
"As part of the president's commitment to work to advance a comprehensive peace in the region," Mitchell will visit Damascus on Friday and Saturday following stops in the Palestinian West Bank city of Ramallah on Wednesday and Beirut on Thursday, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said in Washington. It will also be Mitchell's first visit to Lebanon.
Officials in Beirut said Mitchell, who is currently in Jerusalem, would arrive in Lebanon with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana following elections that saw a Hezbollah-led alliance defeated by a pro-West coalition.
Kelly said Mitchell, who applied for a visa to Syria weeks ago, preferred to make the trip to both Beirut and Damascus after the elections in Lebanon.
He also said Mitchell's trip to Syria and Lebanon is a "follow-up" to president Obama's speech in Cairo last week aimed at improving ties with Arabs and Muslims.