Speaking to her accompanying press corps on the plane en route to Tel Aviv on Saturday, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said: “I will have an opportunity to meet with all my usual interlocutors. This time I’ll meet Abu Mazen in Jordan because that’s where he is going to be, so I’ll see the King of Jordan and Abu Mazen in Jordan. I am looking forward to the opportunity to see President Olmert tonight. The purpose of this trip really is to continue to work on the three major tracks of Annapolis, as well as on the Arab track to get the King of Jordan’s advice and counsel on how we continue to move the Arab support for the Annapolis process forward.
“This time, I will spend a good deal of time on the issues concerning the West Bank and issues concerning the ability to provide a better life for the people of the West Bank, including ways to improve movement and access in pursuance of some of the economic projects that I know Tony Blair and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad would like to get going. You may know that Defense Minister Barak and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad met last week to talk about some of the things that might be done to make some really concrete progress on the ground, because I’ve become convinced that it’s harder to talk about movement and access just in general than to have rather specific ways to get certain economic projects going and knowing what movement and access obstacles there are and then working on those obstacles. So that’s the approach that General Jones took when he was out here that he’s now briefed to me and that I’m now going to follow up. I’ll do that in a trilateral format with Barak and Fayyad together with me, I think, tomorrow, is that trilateral.
“The other element is to talk about how the negotiations are going. As I said to you before, they are doing those quietly, below the radar screen. I think that’s absolutely appropriate. And I’m not coming to insert American ideas into this process. I think they’re doing a lot of work on their own, but I do want to talk to them, get some sense of how it’s going, see where I can be helpful. But most importantly, this is an informal conversation with the two chief negotiators, and I’ll do that also in a trilateral format on Monday, in addition to my normal bilateral meetings with all the parties. Obviously, we’re continuing to try to find an answer for Gaza, where there needs to be an end to the rocket attacks on Israel and where we need to find solutions, sustainable solutions, for the humanitarian situation for the people of Gaza. So those are target questions and the way that we’ll carry it out.
“…One of the places that I think we really do need to see, something of a step-wise functional improvement is on the West Bank movement and access issues, the ability to start to get some of these economic projects from Tony Blair, not in place, because some of them are quite large, but to really clear away the obstacles to them and to get agreement between the parties on how that piece of Annapolis is going to go forward. So the improvement of life on the ground is the piece that has to be pushed forward pretty hard … we’ve known and thought for some time that part of the problem is to be pretty concrete and specific about what you’re trying to do in a specific area, what economic projects you’re trying to put there, what Palestinian security forces are available in that area to take the transfer of Palestinian authority, of Palestinian security forces, in the way that was done in Nablus, forward. Because if you think about it, that gets at one element of the Roadmap, which is increasing Palestinian security, competence, and authority, and it begins to get at the questions of improvement of movement and access and economic life for people. And so to start to move forward concretely in some areas on those, and so to be able to be more specific about what movement and access obstacles there are and to work on those. Think of them as ways to move forward, areas that might be able to move on both security and on economic development.
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QUESTION: What about actual removal of checkpoints? Is that something that you think is possible? Are the Israelis getting ready to do that despite the risks?
SECRETARY RICE: “I certainly want to take a look at that. Obviously, there are security issues, but we do have to find ways to improve movement. There are obstacles that are not checkpoints and then there are checkpoints that are obstacles and I think you have to look at both“.
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QUESTION: You said earlier that, obviously, part of you’re doing this weekend is continuing to try to find an answer to the situation in Gaza. What sort of things are you exploring? Are you getting more involved in the whole idea of a ceasefire or what?
SECRETARY RICE: “No. I think, though, that there are questions about how humanitarian access could be more sustainable, how the Palestinian Authority might have more of a role in providing for the people of Gaza. You know that we supported, for instance, Salam Fayyad’s ideas sometime ago, the Quartet did, on, I think, what could be done about getting back to – not the full November 2005 agreement, but something that might take elements of the 2005 agreement help in the management of crossings, that kind of thing”.
…”I just said I thought it was important to keep in contact with our key Arab allies who are the supporters of the Annapolis process, because we don’t want to lose that thread, which is why I’m spending this time with the King of Jordan. If you remember the last time I was here, I spent some time with Mubarak, and so I just think that’s very important as well“.
The transcript of this briefing was received by email
The Associated Press then reported that “Israel agreed this past week to issue more permits for Palestinian laborers and merchants, but has yet to take down any of the hundreds of West Bank checkpoints it says are necessary to stop suicide bombers. Broader peace negotiations have bogged down despite pledges from all sides to reach at least the outline of a peace deal by the time President Bush leaves office in January. On this issue, Rice said she was not coming to the region to ‘insert American ideas into this process’ … ‘What is useful right now is for the parties to continue what I think is a pretty fruitful discussion between them’. In addition to seeing Barak and Fayyad on Sunday, Rice planned to meet with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni before a quick trip to Amman for talks with Jordanian King Abdullah II as well as Abbas, who is currently in Jordan. Rice then returns to Jerusalem for a three-way meeting on Monday with Livni, who is leading the Israeli negotiating team, and the Palestinian’s chief negotiator Ahmed Qureia. Rice later will head back to Amman for further talks with Abbas”. This AP report can be read in full here .