Israel minister welcomes Jordan meeting with Palestinians

Agence France-Presse

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JERUSALEM // Israeli and Palestinian negotiators headed to Jordan yesterday for their first face-to-face meeting in nearly 16 months, although both sides stressed it did not mark a renewal of talks.

Israel's chief negotiator, Yitzhak Molcho, and his Palestinian counterpart, Saeb Erakat, were due to sit down together today on the shores of the Dead Sea.

They were invited by the Jordanian foreign minister, Nasser Judeh.

Tony Blair, the Quartet on the Middle East envoy, was also to attend the session, along with other officials of the diplomatic grouping, which represents the European Union, Russia, the UN and the US.

"This is a positive development," said Dan Meridor, an Israeli cabinet minister. "It is the first time in a long while that the Palestinians have been prepared to come and talk to us directly, without preconditions."

Mr Meridor, who holds the intelligence portfolio and is the deputy prime minister, said the meeting did not constitute a return to direct talks, but he hoped it would be a springboard that would "allow the Palestinians to return to negotiations".

Mr Erakat made the same point in an interview with Voice of Palestine radio. "This meeting will be devoted to discussing the possibility of making a breakthrough that could lead to the resumption of negotiations. Therefore, it will not mark the resumption of negotiations," he said.

In Ramallah, Mr Erakat urged Israel not to waste the rare opportunity of a face-to-face meeting.

"This is a valuable opportunity for peace and Israel shouldn't waste it and once again be the reason for the failure of efforts by the international community, by the Quartet and by Jordan, to resume the negotiations," he said.

Should today's meeting end without progress, a committee of officials from the Palestinian leadership would look into the available options and "present its recommendations to President [Mahmoud] Abbas within the next few days," he said. "If the Israeli premier [Benjamin Netanyahu] thinks that by continuing to build settlements and destroying any prospect of implementing the two-state solution, that he can stop our efforts, then he is wrong."

News that the two sides would meet sparked anger among Gaza's Hamas rulers, who are trying to push through a reconciliation deal with Mr Abbas's Fatah movement.

"We demand a boycott of this meeting," said a Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri. "Going to such a meeting is only betting on failure."

The leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine also denounced the move as a "fatal error" that would force the Palestinians back into another pointless waiting game.

"The occupation and the Quartet are the only beneficiaries from the Amman meeting that is, in fact, a negotiations meeting that drains the Palestinian national account," the group said.

Mr Meridor said the initiative to get the two sides talking after a hiatus of nearly 16 months had come from Jordan, in what he described as a "positive change". "Jordan is a neighbour and we have important relations with it ... its involvement in any solution to the Palestinian problem is" crucial, he said.

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A child's meeting with Ratko Mladic, hours before the massacre of thousands

Associated Press

PROHICI // The footage horrified the world: a grinning Ratko Mladic patting a Muslim boy on the head and assuring him everyone in the Srebrenica area would be safe, just hours before overseeing the murder of 8,000 men and boys.

The boy in the video is now a 24-year-old man. He recalls with crystal clarity the sunny day in 1995 when he met the Bosnian Serb military commander, who gave him chocolate.

"I was 8 and I didn't know what was going on, or who Ratko Mladic was," Izudin Alic said on Tuesday.

Mr Mladic, now 69, was captured last week by Serbian intelligence agents after 16 years on the run, and the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague plans to try him on charges of genocide. Mr Mladic was sent to the Netherlands on Tuesday, hours after judges rejected his appeal of an extradition order.

In 1995, Mr Alic was among thousands of Bosnian Muslims who fled to the Srebrenica area, seeking protection from UN troops. That July evening, he joined other kids flocking to a grassy field where they heard an important soldier was handing out chocolate.

"I went there with other children and took that chocolate bar from Ratko Mladic," said Mr Alic, a lanky man with sunken eyes. "He asked me what my name was and I said Izudin. I was not afraid. I was just focused on the chocolate."

Mr Alic's grandfather had forbidden him to go, but he sneaked out of the factory where the family was hiding because he could not resist the lure of chocolate.

He was devouring it with gratitude while his father was being hunted down by Mr Mladic's men in nearby woods. His father, Sahzet, had fled the night before along with 15,000 other Srebrenica men, moving through mountains and minefields. Mr Mladic's troops soon caught up with them.

"He was found years ago in one of the mass graves," Mr Alic said, flipping through a photo album showing the family in a garden in front of their home.

The footage that captures Mr Mladic patting Mr Alic on the head generated worldwide revulsion because of the contrast between feigned benevolence and the reality of the massacre to come. Mr Mladic parades among Bosnian refugees, smilingly promising evacuation with his soldiers handing out chocolate to kids. In the video, Mr Mladic asks Mr Alic his age, and Alic responds "12." He says he lied to appear more grown-up, not realising the risks. The youngest known Srebrenica victim was 14.

The United Nations had declared the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica, besieged by Serbs throughout the conflict, a protected area for civilians. When Mr Mladic's troops overran the enclave, some 20,000 people flocked to the UN base outside Srebrenica for protection.

So did the Alic family - the young boy, his two sisters, mother and grandfather.

When Serb troops reached the base, the outgunned and outnumbered Dutch peacekeepers never fired a shot, and Mr Mladic's troops began separating out the men for execution.

The family returned to settle in Prohici, just outside Srebrenica, a few years after the war. Mr Alic earns a living as a construction worker and making sandwiches at a fast-food stand.

He often prays at his father's grave in the town's memorial centre, where thousands of Mr Mladic's victims, unearthed from mass graves, were finally laid to rest.

For Mr Alic and his family, some solace came when Mr Mladic was captured last week in a village north of Belgrade.

"I was glad," Mr Alic said. "He should get the biggest sentence possible. He killed my father, my uncle and so many of our people."

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Footage of Muslim boy, 8, whose father was among those killed by Bosnian Serb troops, meeting those troops' leader shocked the world. Izudin Alic, now 24, recalls the day perfectly.

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