http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080722/wl_mideast_afp/mideastpeaceabbasperes_080722192219
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli President Shimon Peres gave Mahmud Abbas a red carpet welcome on Tuesday when he welcomed the Palestinian leader to his official Jerusalem residence for talks on the peace process.
The largely ceremonial Israeli president greeted Abbas for the first time with a red carpet and Palestinian flags flying. In the past, Abbas has been received either at the Israeli cabinet office or Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s official resident.
“We have a chance of peace. We must not let it escape, we must not lose it,” Abbas said, according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
But he stressed that Israeli settlement building, roadblocks and raids in the occupied West Bank remained obstacles in peace negotiations that were revived only eight months ago.
Palestinian MP Ziad Abu Ziad played down the significance of the 20-minute encounter.
Abu Ziad said that aside from the fact that Peres has no policy-making role, “Israelis save meaningless honours and embraces for us, which do nothing to change the reality.
“We want progress in the peace negotiations, while on the ground the suffering, the roadblocks and the settlements continue.”
The peace talks, which were revived in November with the target of inking a deal before US President George W. Bush leaves office next January, have so far failed to make tangible progress.
Peres won the Nobel peace prize in 1994 jointly with assassinated Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and the late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat for launching the Oslo peace process the previous year.
