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'If we don't solve the core issue of the problem, then I fear that rocket attacks, the death of innocent peoples, the conflict is just going to continue. I don't see any end in sight,' King Abdullah II said.
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WASHINGTON - MIDDLE East peace talks could fall into a three-year limbo if no 'groundswell' comes during US President George W. Bush's last year in office, Jordan's King Abdullah II warned in a radio interview on Thursday.
In excerpts from an interview the king gave NPR News before a horrific attack in Jerusalem, King Abdullah stressed the need for major progress in the negotiations that Bush helped launch in Annapolis, Maryland last November.
'If we don't have enough groundswell to be able to convince people that the process is continuing into 2009, it'll be another two or three years until whoever the new American president is, that will be interested of sort of touching our region with a 10-foot pole,' King Abdullah warned.
In the excerpts distributed by NPR ahead of the broadcast later on Thursday, King Abdullah said he believed that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas could reach a deal.
'All the reports that I've received and the discussions that I've had with Prime Minister Olmert and President Abbas, I think the chemistry is there, the willingness to move the negotiations forward is there,' he said.
But he said they needed help to break the deadlock on final status issues such as the borders for a future Palestinian state, the fate of Palestinian refugees, and the status of Jerusalem, which both sides want as their capital.
'Israeli and Palestinian politicians, left to their own devices, will not be able to complete the final status issues, and this is when we need to be ready as part of the international community led by the United States that can push them over that hurdle,' he said.
He warned of the alternative to a peace agreement.
'If we don't solve the core issue of the problem, then I fear that rocket attacks, the death of innocent peoples, the conflict is just going to continue. I don't see any end in sight,' he said.
'We need to win, otherwise the Middle East is going to continue to slide into the abyss,' he told the NPR News programme 'All Things Considered.'
The interview was recorded before a Palestinian gunman opened fire inside a Jewish religious school in Jerusalem late Thursday killing eight teens, in an attack that threatened to torpedo peace efforts amid ever-escalating violence. -- AFP
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