US envoy Mitchell meets Peres, Lieberman, Erekat

(21 Jan 2010) AP TELEVISION NEWS Jerusalem - 21 January 2010 1. Exterior of Israeli foreign ministry 2. Israeli flags waving 3. Close up of entrance sign 4. US envoy George Mitchell arriving at ministry, being welcomed by Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman 5. Cutaway of cameraman 6. Zoom out from Mitchell to him shaking hands with Lieberman, two walking inside POOL Jerusalem - 21 January 2010 7. Exterior of Israeli President''s Residence 8. Close up of Israeli president Shimon Peres welcoming Mitchell 9. Mitchell and Peres shaking hand, sitting down 10. SOUNDBITE: (English) Shimon Peres, Israeli president ++AUDIO AS INCOMING++ "I do hope that you would be able again to try and push the process because time is of an essence." 11. SOUNDBITE: (English) George Mitchell, US Mideast envoy (++ CAMERA ZOOMS OUT IN MIDDLE OF SOUNDBITE++) "President Obama has set forth his vision of a comprehensive peace in the Middle East which includes Israeli-Palestinians, Israel-Syria, Israel-Lebanon and the full normalisation of relations between Israel and all of its neighbours and as you put it, recognising the complexities and difficulties notwithstanding, we will pursue until we achieve that objective." AP TELEVISION NEWS Ramallah, West Bank - 21 January 2010 12. Set up shot of Saeb Erekat, senior Palestinian government spokesman 13. SOUNDBITE: (English) Saeb Erekat, senior Palestinian government spokesman: "I hope one day the Israeli government will realise the difference between negotiations and dictations. And I hope this would be an eye opener for Senator Mitchell. Every time he comes here it''s either settlement tenders, "fait accompli" (French meaning: "done deal") policies, dictations or such statements. We want Senator Mitchell to succeed in his mission. And we know that he is exerting every possible effort. But the way to success is to have Mr Netanyahu to drop his conditions. Mr Netanyahu is conditioning the resumption of negotiations with two things: number one: that he continues with settlement activities including in Jerusalem, and secondly that he refuses to resume negotiations on the core issues when we had them in December 2008. Without Mr Netanyahu dropping his conditions how you can resume negotiations?" 14. End shot of Erekat STORYLINE: Washington''s Middle East envoy launched a new effort on Thursday aimed at restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, just as President Obama expressed pessimism about the prospects. Already complicating envoy George Mitchell''s mission was a new demand by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for an Israeli military presence in the West Bank to stop weapons smuggling, even after formation of a Palestinian state. Mitchell met Thursday with Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and President Shimon Peres. He was scheduled to see Netanyahu later on Thursday. As Mitchell began his mission, his boss, Obama, admitted he overreached in the Mideast. In an interview with Time Magazine published Thursday, Obama said internal conflicts made it hard for the Israelis and Palestinians to restart talks, "and I think that we overestimated our ability to persuade them to do so when their politics ran contrary to that." He said Israel found it very hard to move with any bold gestures, while Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had Hamas "looking over his shoulder." Obama concluded, "I think it is absolutely true that what we did this year didn''t produce the kind of breakthrough that we wanted and if we had anticipated some of these political problems on both sides earlier, we might not have Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...