Posted on 09/16/2011 2:53:41 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Facing a U.N. showdown over Palestinian statehood, President Barack Obama plans talks with feuding Israeli and Turkish leaders and renewed efforts to revive Middle East peace talks in a diplomatic push next week to ease rising regional tensions.
Obama will meet Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu separately on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, the White House said on Friday.
The president will urge the two U.S. allies to heal a damaging diplomatic split over the 2010 killing of Turkish activists in a Gaza-bound aid convoy, a crisis that has underscored Israel's growing isolation in the region.
"We have encouraged Israel and Turkey, two close friends of the United States, to work to bridge their differences, so we'll have an opportunity to discuss those issues," White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters at a briefing previewing Obama's visit set to begin late Monday.
This will come against the backdrop of a Palestinian bid for U.N. recognition of statehood at the United Nations next week, despite fierce Israeli opposition and a U.S. threat to veto any such move in Security Council.
The meeting with Netanyahu, who has had a strained relationship with Obama, will focus primarily on how to get long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks back on track, Rhodes said. The encounter is expected Tuesday or Wednesday.
It will be the first chance for them to try to mend fences face-to-face since May when they clashed in an Oval Office meeting over Obama's insistence that negotiations on Palestinian statehood should start on the basis of Israel's prewar 1967 borders.
Rhodes said there were no plans for Obama to sit down with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in New York, though he did not rule out the possibility.
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The only ‘lowering’ O is good for is the lowering of expectations.
O’bama and the U.N. LOL! That’s some funny stuff.
BHO’s meeting with Erdogan: “Salaam alaikum!! Keep up the good work!!!”
BHO’s meeting with Netanyahu: “Still a Zionist swine, I see.”
Erdogan has no intention of taking a reasonable position. He’s sees Israel’s growing isolation in this total ME breakdown and he hopes to parlay this into a growing regional role and even dominance in the Muslim world. He thinks he has Israel over a barrel so I’d be surprised to see any movement on his part.
“We have encouraged Israel and Turkey, two close friends of the United States, to work to bridge their differences, so we’ll have an opportunity to discuss those issues,...”
Guess Zero is trying to convince the NY Jewish voters that he’s on their side. Yeah, SURE.
Not to worry.
Once the fighting is over, the Regime will send the newly renamed USS Harvey Milk (formerly the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower), the first Navy ship crewed exclusively by homosexuals and illegal aliens working for “citizenship” to help pick up the pieces, pass out hot meals, wash little Muslim babies and other activities in pursuit of Premier Hussein’s Peace Plan for the peaceful and Democracy loving Arab Street....
he will pick the wrong side AGAIN !!
The Turkish PM certainly doesn't seem to feel that there will be any US repercussions for the outrageous things he's been saying, and there's been no public comment on his statements from either the WH or State.
Makes you wonder. Or rather, it would make you wonder if it were anybody other than 0bama. With him, it's pretty much a certainty, and the only reason he may ask Erdogan to tone it down is because the Boy Wonder is about to lose the Jewish vote.
The WH has definitely been egging Erdogan on, and Erdogan has been taking all he can. The WH has pushed him to beef up troops on the Syrian border, threaten to carve out a “safe zone” for Syrian dissidents in the north of Syria, and all this plays into his maniacal plan to lead the Muslim world. It is good to have a counterweight to Iran, esp with respect to Syria (which is close to Iran and hated by Saudis) but clearly this leaves Israel squeezed in the middle. Erdogan flogs Israel because it makes him more palatable to the Arab street. Otherwise they’d hate the Turks as much as they hate the Iranians - for being non Arabs.
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