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Renewed Israeli construction in settlements after the end of the construction freeze in late September would bring the newly-launched direct negotiations to a grinding halt, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has warned in letters sent to U.S. President Barack Obama, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and the High Representative of the European Union on Foreign Policy, Catherine Ashton. "It's impossible to conduct negotiations alongside settlement construction," wrote Abbas. The future of the construction freeze in West Bank settlements is expected to become the first significant obstacle facing the Israeli and American governments in the direct talks.

The United States has said it hopes to hold talks with Iran soon and would be prepared to follow up on a plan to provide fuel for Iran's research reactor in exchange for low-enriched uranium. The plan was mooted in Geneva last October at a meeting between Iranian officials and senior diplomats from the five permanent UN Security Council members - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States - along with Germany. "We obviously are fully prepared to follow up with Iran on specifics regarding our initial proposal involving the Tehran research reactor ... as well as, you know,...

This makes it clear just how petrified by the prospect of direct negotiations the Palestinians are: The Palestinian Authority has added new conditions for resuming direct talks with Israel, presenting new demands that in effect preclude negotiations. The stipulations stated to the BBC by PA chief negotiator Saeb Erekat reflect a previously stated strategy of waiting “a year or two” for the United Nations to recognize it as a new Arab country instead of trying to reach a compromise agreement with Israel. … Erekat told the BBC that in order for direct talks to resume, Israel also must accept former...

(Reuters) - The United States and Cuba will meet in Washington on June 18 for a new round of talks on migration, despite ongoing tensions between the longtime ideological foes, a U.S. spokeswoman in Havana said on Saturday. This will be the third time they have met to talk over migration since President Barack Obama became president last year, and represent one of his avenues for trying to improve relations with the communist-led island. The discussions primarily cover agreements from the mid-1990s aimed at preventing an exodus of Cuban refugees to the United States such as the 1980 Mariel boatlift...

Israeli-Palestinian negotiations are doomed to hit a brick wall because no Palestinian leader will accept anything less than what Yasser Arafat rejected at Camp David 10 years ago, and no Jewish prime minister will offer anything more, Vice Premier and Regional Development Minister Silvan Shalom said Thursday in an interview with The Jerusalem Post. “No matter what we do, I do not see a Palestinian leader who is willing to accept what Arafat rejected, and I don’t see a Jewish prime minister who can give more than what [Ehud] Barak offered. Therefore, I see it as a dead end,” he...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Top aides to President Barack Obama have met early and often with lobbyists, Democratic political strategists and other interests with a stake in the administration's national health care overhaul, White House visitor records obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press show.

Gregory Smith was jobless and desperate to help his family, so he decided to rob an Indianapolis check-cashing store. "It was just the last resort. And I mean it was something that I would never think to do," Smith said...

De facto government says no final deal on Zelaya return (Adds quotes from Zelaya camp, U.S. official, lawmaker) -- U.S. State Department spokesman Robert Wood called on both sides to keep talking. "What we're trying to do right now, from the U.S. side, is to encourage them to continue, because, as I said, we're close, and we want to see this deal happen." Dick Lugar, the top Republican on the U.S. Senate foreign relations committee, boosted Micheletti's drive to have the elections recognized by supporting a call for the Organization of American States to send observers for the vote. "I...

Despite speaking of a policy change in Washington, The United States says it will enter dialogue with Iran on the presumption that Tehran is after "ballistic nuclear weapons". "I can assure that it's a topic that we'll bring up," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters on Saturday. His comments come while Tehran has repeatedly said that its nuclear program is peaceful in nature and the UN nuclear watchdog in its latest report confirmed that the agency has been able to continue "to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran." "The Iranians have responsibilities to the international...

US President Barack Obama is expected to moderate a September meeting between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, President Shimon Peres said in an interview with Fox News Monday. Peres told the TV network that the two leaders would be meeting at the United Nations.

Minnesota Senator Al Franken made a stop at the Mayo Clinic today as the U.S. Senate works on its own health care reform bill. One of the more heavily debated issues when it comes to reform is that so-called public option or government run health care. So today, we found out where Minnesota’s Senators Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar stand on that very topic. Minnesota Senator Al Franken walked into the Kahler Grand Hotel this afternoon after touring Mayo Clinic. Health care reform is one of the biggest domestic issues facing the federal government right now and Franken was quick...

The United States is urging Iran to agree to a meeting with the six key nations trying to ensure that its nuclear program is peaceful in which the US will be a full participant. US deputy ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo said Monday that Iran had not responded to the request from the five permanent council members - the US, Russia, China, Britain and France - and Germany for new talks. The talks would be the first international discussion on Iran's nuclear program since US President Barack Obama took office in January. DiCarlo told the UN Security Council that the United States...

WASHINGTON, May 7, 2009 – Providing better lives for future generations was a theme that ran through all the discussions yesterday as the presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan met with President Barack Obama at the White House yesterday, a senior administration official said. “The idea of doing things for the young people came up time and time again -- and with some emotion, I might add, on [the part of] some of the participants,” National Security Advisor James L. Jones Jr. said. “This is about the future of two new, young democracies, and within those democracies we are talking, really,...

US President Barack Obama's administration is hoping to relaunch communication channels with Cuba after 50 years of adversarial relations, US media reported. "Informal meetings" were being planned between the US State Department and Cuban diplomats in the United States "to determine whether the two governments could open formal talks on a variety of issues," The New York Times said

President Barack Obama on Tuesday condemned as "appalling and objectionable" a speech by Iran's president which denounced Israel as a racist state and prompted a walkout from a U.N. conference on racism. Delegates at the troubled United Nations meeting, meanwhile, speedily adopted an anti-racism declaration the day after the dramatic protest by Western states at the comments by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad was the only head of state to address the Geneva conference, known as Durban II, which is being boycotted by about a dozen countries including the United States who fear it could be used to single out Israel for...

Prior to North Korea's launch yesterday of a Taepodong-2 ballistic missile, President Barack Obama declared that such an action would be "provocative." This public statement was an attempt to reinforce the administration's private efforts to urge the Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea (DPRK) not to fire the missile.

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran dismissed American government reports that senior U.S. and Iran envoys had a cordial — and promising — face-to-face exchange at an international conference, saying Wednesday that no "talks" took place. The competing accounts of Tuesday's encounter in the Netherlands appeared to reflect the different approaches to overtures to end the United States' and Iran's nearly 30-year diplomat standoff. Washington has seemed eager to build on President Barack Obama's surprise video message last month to seek engagement with Iran's ruling clerics. Iran has — in public, at least — been far cooler to making immediate contacts, but...

TALKING with Taliban moderates in Afghanistan is a tactic "worth exploring", US Vice President Joe Biden says. "It's worth exploring. The idea of what concessions would be made is well beyond the scope of my being able to answer,'' said Mr Biden at NATO headquarters in Brussels today. "I do think it's worth engaging and determining whether or not there are those who are willing to participate in a secure and stable Afghan state,'' he said. Mr Biden said that while the US-led forces were not winning the war in Afghanistan, neither was the conflict lost. "We are not now...

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran's president said Tuesday the world was "entering an era of dialogue" and that his country would welcome talks with its longtime adversary, the United States, if they are based on mutual respect. The hard-line Iranian leader said terrorism, the elimination of nuclear weapons, restructuring the U.N. Security Council and fighting drug trafficking could be topics for the two sides to talk about. "If you really want to fight terrorism, come and cooperate with the Iranian nation, which is the biggest victim of terrorism so that terrorism is eliminated. ... If you want to confront nuclear weapons...

Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) has pulled out of negotiations on a bipartisan compromise on the Senate’s economic stimulus bill. Three Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Olympia Snowe (Maine) and Arlen Specter (Pa.) — continue to negotiate with Democrats, but Voinovich’s departure could make it more difficult for Democrats to reach the 60 votes they need to pass the bill. Voinovich left a meeting in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) office around 2:30 p.m., saying he did not believe there was a deal he could agree to on an amendment that would cut as much as $100 billion from...