U.S. Special Envoy Mitchell Heading to Middle East
By David Gollust
The State Department
26 January 2009
U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Peace George Mitchell is wasting no time in beginning his peace-making mission, leaving just four days after his appointment on an initial trip aimed at reinvigorating regional peace efforts.
State Department Acting Spokesman Robert Wood said Mitchell will be accompanied by an inter-agency team of Middle East specialists in what he said will be an active and aggressive effort to seek lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians, starting with an effort to shore up the current Gaza truce.
"Special envoy Mitchell will work to consolidate the cease-fire in Gaza, establish an effective anti-smuggling and interdiction regime to prevent the rearming of Hamas, facilitate the re-opening of border crossings, and development of an effective response to the immediate humanitarian needs of the Palestinians in Gaza and eventual reconstruction and re-invigorate the peace process," he said.
After an initial stop Tuesday in Cairo, Mitchell will go to Jerusalem and Ramallah in the West Bank for two days of meetings with leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. He then visits Jordan and Saudi Arabia and wraps up the mission with consultations in London and Paris.
Spokesman Wood cautioned against expectations of a major U.S. policy shift during the Mitchell trip and said the former senator will be in a "listening mode." He said Mitchell has no plans to visit Gaza or talk with officials of the radical Islamic group Hamas, which controls the coastal strip.
A senior official in Washington said the United States is not discouraging Egyptian efforts for a Palestinian unity government of President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement and Hamas.
But he said the United States wants, and believes it has in Mr. Abbas a Palestinian leadership willing to deal seriously on peace process issues - unlike Hamas which refuses to accept Israel's right to exist.
After his Senate career ended in 1995, Mitchell was chosen by former President Bill Clinton to be U.S. special envoy for Northern Ireland and was instrumental in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that eventually brought the sectarian conflict to an end.
At an event here last Thursday with President Barack Obama at which he was named to the Middle East post, Mitchell said the Northern Ireland conflict had an 800-year history and appeared, two decades ago, to be just as intractable as the Middle East conflict seems to be now.
"Conflicts are created, conducted and sustained by human beings. They can be ended by human beings. I saw it happen in Northern Ireland, although admittedly it took a very long time. I believe deeply that with committed, persevering and patient diplomacy, it can happen in the Middle East," he said.
Mitchell, of Lebanese descent, authored an influential report on the Middle East in 2001 that called for a Palestinian crackdown on terrorism and a freeze on Israeli settlement-building that became the basis of the international "Roadmap" to a two-state Middle East solution issued two years later.
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