Two senior US peace envoys, Assistant Secretary of State William Burns and former general Anthony Zinni, arrived in Israel Monday at the start of an open-ended mission to end more than a year of violence, a US embassy spokeswoman said.
The two men arrived at 4:00 pm (1400 GMT) at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport and went straight into a meeting there with the head of Israel's Shin Beth internal security service, Avi Dichter, and the chief of military intelligence, General Amos Malka, the spokeswoman said, quoted by AFP.
They were due in Jerusalem after the initial meeting, expected to be met with a hardline Israeli stand, and skepticism and hopelessness among the Palestinians, who lost at least 13 people since Thursday.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Monday that he is sticking by his demand for "seven days of quiet" as the first step in implementing the Mitchell Report, according to the Tel Aviv-based Haaretz earlier on the day.
Sharon made his comments in preparation for the talks with the envoys. Burns will meet Tuesday with the prime minister and later with Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. Also present at the talks will be the heads of the security services and officials from the Foreign Ministry.
"Israel places great importance on reaching a cease-fire and will do everything it can in order to achieve this aim," Sharon said. "Israel is committed to the Tenet and Mitchell agreements. I hope that the [arrival] of General Zinni will further the process and hasten the start of the seven days of quiet that has been decided upon."
Sharon on Monday named former army general and counter-terrorism expert Meir Dagan - rather than Peres - to head the Israeli team for talks with the arriving US envoys.
Israel Radio reported that the Palestinian delegation for talks with the US envoys had expressed strong reservations about the choice of Dagan, who is viewed by many Palestinians as holding ultra-hawkish views.
Sharon has proposed a three-member steering committee, to include himself, Peres and Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, to oversee the Dagan-led professional team which will conduct the talks.
HAMAS: US ENVOYS ARE NOT WELCOME
In the oppositon Palestinian camp, the Islamic Resistance Group Hamas, which lost its military leader on Friday in an assassination carried out by US-made apaches, said that the US envoys “are not welcome.”
Hamas leader in the West Bank Hassan Youssef told Albawaba.com on Monday that his group “is totally confident that the delegation has come holding the Israeli point of view, and one of their primary aims is to stop the Intifada and resistance of the Zionist occupation.
“Today their prime minister [Sharon] stresed that his policies of assassination, killings, destruction and persecution against the Palestinian people will continue,” he said over phone.
Sources told Albawaba.com that the Palestinia Authority will repeat its demand for international protection of the Palestinaisn, and guarantees that the understandings signed between both parties are respected.
Palestinian political analyst Ghassan Khatib said, however, that the Palestinians would not object to a peace plan, if there were one, “but the envoys do not have any proposal for consideration, except for a demand that the Palestinian leadership stop resistance against the occupation” – Albawaba.com
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