Olmert: Talks With U.S., Israelis To Precede Pullout

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/698657.html
 
Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in an interview broadcast Sunday that if elected, his government would conduct "internal negotiations" within Israel, followed by talks with Washington and the international community to cement support for permanent borders, before initiating a future withdrawal from the West Bank.

 
Olmert said that if elected he would conduct "an internal negotiation, first of all, so that we within the state of Israel will know what we want."

This would be followed with negotiations with the United States and with the international community over "borderlines such that all of the international community would support, including the United States of America.

"I have a foundation for believing that there is great openness both in the United States and in other places, to listen to these points and to discuss them in seriousness."

Asked about criticism of the plan by Haaretz columnist Ari Shavit as beginning of the end of the state of Israel, Olmert said:

"The convergence plan is a very thought-out, very responsible, very cautious effort by the state of Israel, to avoid being hostage to the Palestinians, to avoid being the one to whom the Palestinians dictate, when they will hold negotiations, when they won't, and so forth.

According to Olmert, the criticism, and what he called the motives behind it, were "irrelevant" to the plan and its aim, which he defined as "safeguarding the existence of the Jewish state with a stable Jewish majority, and separation with the Palestinians."