ISRAEL - OBAMA

Obama tells Israelis Jerusalem will be their capital

Wednesday 23 July 2008

US presidential candidate Barack Obama reaffirmed his support for Israel at a joint press conference with Israeli Foreign Affairs minister Tzipi Livni in the terror-stricken town of Sderot.

Special Report The race to the White House

Wednesday 23 July 2008

By AFP (text)

US presidential candidate Barack Obama reaffirmed on Wednesday his position that Jerusalem will be the capital of Israel but insisted its final status must be decided through peace talks.

"I continue to say that Jerusalem will be the capital of Israel. I have said it before and will say it again... but I've also said that it is a final status issue that has to be dealt with by the parties involved," he said in the southern Israeli town of Sderot.

The international community, including the United States, does not recognise Israel's claim that Jerusalem is its "eternal, undivided capital." Israel occupied mainly Arab east Jerusalem and the Old City in war in June 1967.

Jerusalem remains one of the most contentious issues in the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, who wish to make it the capital of their future state.

The White House hopeful had raised the ire of the Palestinians when he declared in a speech before a pro-Israeli group in Washington last month that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided."

At the press conference, Obama said that he believed there was a window of opportunity for Middle East peace.

He also said he backed Israel's refusal to talk with the Islamist Hamas movement that rules the Gaza Strip, a group that the United States also boycotts as as terrorist outfit.

Obama was speaking in the southern Israeli town of Sderot, which has long been a target of rocket and mortar fire from Palestinians in the neighbouring Gaza Strip.

"Big sticks and big carrots" for Iran

Obama also said that "a nuclear Iran would pose a grave threat" and that the world must prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

"A nuclear Iran would be a game-changing situation, not just in the Middle East but around the world," he added.

Obama spoke of a series of "big sticks and big carrots" regarding the the Iranian regime and repeated his openness to meeting with its representatives, if the conditions were appropriate.

"I would at my time and choosing be willing to meet with any leader if I thought it would promote the national security interest of the United States of America," he said.