JERUSALEM (AP) - President Barack Obama’s Mideast envoy is meeting Israel’s new leadership, with the two sides seemingly at odds over the basic requirement for Israeli-Palestinian peace.
U.S. envoy George Mitchell flew into Israel Wednesday from Tunisia. In Algeria earlier he said forging an independent Palestinian state is “the only way” to peace.
On Thursday, he is due to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his hard-line foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, for the first time since they took office last month.
Netanyahu has not endorsed Palestinian statehood and has yet to unveil his government’s policy on peace efforts. Lieberman says pledges by the previous Israeli administration to work for Palestinian independence are no longer relevant.
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