Brussels, 23/09/2009 (Agence Europe) - The eagerly awaited summit on Tuesday, on the sidelines of the UN's General Assembly in New York (bringing together the Israeli prime minister and the president of the Palestinian Authority with President Obama), essentially produced a symbolic result, a photo of the first handshake between the two protagonists. This ought to be a reminder of the photo of Mr Arafat and Mr Rabin back in September 1993, but this time the photo was accompanied by US appeals for negotiations to resume - negotiations which have stalled since Mr Netanyahu got into power and the Gaza conflict broke out. Barack Obama said that the two parties have made some steps forward and called on them to resume talks on concrete issues. Surrounded by most of the members of their respective governments (including Avigdor Lieberman), Benyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas, according to George Mitchell, the US Special Envoy, had held “courteous and frank discussions, even if the tone had sometimes been sharp”. Mitchell said that the two parties had been aware of the scale of their responsibilities and President Obama had done all he could to remind them of that fact. All the US leaders pointed out that the time of preliminary conditions was over and direct discussions should now begin. President Obama formally invited the negotiators to Washington at short notice to get down to work under the guidance of his Special Envoy because the US government said that it was convinced of the need to accompany the negotiators along this path. He appeared to have abandoned his first demand for a freeze on settlements, in order to facilitate the resumption of talks. The former US ambassador to Israel said that obtaining preliminary concessions was a “lost cause”. This downscaling in demands would help the two protagonists become more flexible, in the knowledge that everything, in fact, was keeping them apart. According to the Jerusalem Post on Wednesday, George Mitchell was now talking of a “suggestion” and not “preliminary conditions” - a suggestion which, if applied, would help kick-start negotiations in the best conditions possible, with the best chances of success, explained Mitchell in the Jerusalem Post. (F.B./transl.rh)