Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday played down expectations for a peace deal with the Palestinians by the end of 2008 as laid out at a U.S.-sponsored peace conference last week. "We will make an effort to hold speedy negotiations in the hope we may conclude by the end of 2008, but certainly there is no commitment for a firm timetable for their completion," Olmert said at the start of Sunday's cabinet meeting.
According to Reuters, Olmert said any progress in the peace process would depend on adhering to commitments under a long-stalled U.S. peace "road map." "The most important thing in the joint statement is that ... any agreement that we reach in the future will be dependent on completion of all road map commitments.
"In other words, Israel will not have to implement any commitment which emanates from the agreement before all the road map commitments have been met," the Israeli leader said. The 2003 U.S. road map provides benchmarks that include a Palestinian crackdown on armed groups, as well as a freeze of Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank.
