US President Barack Obama's Middle East envoy told Israel's ultranationalist foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman Thursday that Washington wants to see the creation of a Palestinian state. “I reiterated to the foreign minister that US policy favors, with respect to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a two-state solution which will have a Palestinian state living in peace alongside the Jewish state of Israel,” envoy George Mitchell told reporters, with Lieberman at his side. “We look forward also to efforts to achieving comprehensive peace throughout the region,” Mitchell said. Lieberman has rejected restarting statehood negotiations with the Palestinians that were launched by then-US President George W. Bush at a conference in Annapolis, Maryland in 2007. In his comments to reporters, Lieberman made no mention of a Palestinian state, an issue that could put Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-leaning government on a collision course with Obama. “It was a great opportunity to exchange some ideas, and we spoke about really close cooperation,” Lieberman said about his meeting with Mitchell. Mitchell, a former US senator who mediated in the Northern Ireland peace process, planned to hold talks later in the day with Netanyahu and see Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Friday. No Israeli attack on Iran Israeli President Shimon Peres dismissed Thursday speculation that his country might attack Iran to deny it the means of making nuclear weapons, saying US-led diplomacy was the solution. Peres's office quoted him as telling visiting US envoy George Mitchell: “All the talk about a possible attack by Israel on Iran is not true. The solution in Iran is not military.” A spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declined to respond to Peres's remarks. Commenting on recent Western efforts to engage Tehran, Peres said: “Broad international cooperation must be created on the Iranian issue. “It is in our common interest that through dialogue with Iran the world discover whether there is an opportunity in Iran, or whether Iran is bluffing.” The US, like Israel, has refused to rule out military force as a last resort against Iran. But senior Obama administration officials have been publicly cool to the idea, mindful of the unfinished wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that while an attack could delay Iran's nuclear program by up to three years, it would “cement their determination to have a nuclear program, and also build into the whole country an undying hatred of whoever hits them.”
