Jerusalem: Israeli Prime Minister designate Tzipi Livni warned Sunday that time is running out for a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, with extremists gaining strength as negotiations stumble.

In her first foreign policy speech since her appointment to form a new Israeli government, Livni said Israel must press ahead with peace talks because "doing nothing has its own price."

Israel and the Palestinians resumed talks last November at an international conference hosted by President Bush. They set a target date of January 2009,when Bush leaves office, for completing a peace deal, but little apparent progress has been made, and both sides cast severe doubt about meeting the target.

Livni, who heads the Israeli negotiating team, warned there are dangers in letting the process drag on indefinitely. "An understanding of what is under way in the region shows that time is not working in the favor" of Israel and regional moderates, she said, indicating the growing strength of the Islamic Hamas militants, who overran the Gaza Strip last year and are challenging moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank.

Livni was speaking at a strategy conference in Jerusalem. She is currently the foreign minister in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert s transition government. She endorsed the Palestinian view of the negotiations as an all-or-nothing affair, with no partial accords or agreements on some issues but not others. She said the two sides concur that "nothing is agreed upon until everything is agreed upon."

Also unlike Olmert, Livni did not spell out the shape of an agreement as she sees it. In a newspaper interview last week, Olmert said peace would mean Israel s relinquishing control of the West Bank or equivalent territory as well as much of the Arab section of Jerusalem.
Source : PTI