Despite leaving Israel empty handed after four days of intense peace talks Secretary of State John Kerry is optimistic that "real progress" has been made, according to The New York Times.
The trip was Kerry's fifth in the past three months as he works to get Israeli and Palestinian officials on the same page, a goal that has been notoriously difficult to reach.
"We started out with very wide gaps and we have narrowed those considerably," Kerry told reporters. "I am very hopeful that we are close to an approach that will work, but it will take a little bit more time to work through some of the details."
So far Kerry has failed to convince Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to meet, a key first step toward any lasting peace agreement.
"This is the fifth bid by the leading diplomat of the world's superpower to persuade these two people to go into a room together, and even that he cannot achieve," David Horovitz, an Israeli journalist, told The New York Times. "At some point it becomes embarrassing and humiliating for the United States."
Despite the difficulty of the situation Abbas told reporters that the Palestinians were "optimistic because Kerry is serious and determined to achieve a solution," according to the Jerusalem Post.
In order to agree to sit down with Israel Abbas has demanded that settlement construction in the West Bank ceases and that the border that existed prior to the 1967 Middle East War be the border used currently, according to the Los Angeles Times.
"We hope the time will come very soon to sit at the negotiations table to discuss all of the fundamental issues," Abbas told reporters. "The window for the two-state solution was getting narrower because of Israeli settlement activities and its refusal to release prisoners."
Netanyahu does not want to be forced into accepting any preconditions prior to the start of peace talks with Abbas. The primary stumbling block appears to be the construction of Israeli settlements. Since Kerry renewed efforts to get the two sides to agree to peace negotiations construction on new settlements ceased, although projects that were already planned and approved for construction were allowed to continue, according to the New York Times.
"I think we all know he (Kerry) won't be able to bridge that gap very easily, and even if he does, he won't be able to take it any further," Diana Buttu, an Arab-Israeli lawyer, told The New York Times. I have no doubt he's trying his hardest. What's at issue is, I know what broke down the negotiations in the past, and unless he addresses those issues, he won't be able to move forward."
When Kerry left the region for Brunei he left behind staff members, including his top Middle East aide, to continue working on the peace process, according to The New York Times.
"I'm feeling very hopeful that we have a concept that is being now fleshed out and that people have a sense of how this might be able to go forward," Kerry said. "I wouldn't do it if there wasn't some hope and possibility in that."
