No current plan to announce resumption of Mideast talks -US
There are no plans at the moment for an announcement on resuming peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters on Thursday.
"There are currently no plans for an announcement for the resumption of negotiations," Psaki said in Amman, where U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is on his sixth visit to the region to try to revive peace talks that broke down nearly three years ago.
This comes as U.S. Secretary of State John
Kerry visited a camp for Syrian refugees displaced by the fighting
in their country, hearing first-hand accounts from Syrians who have fled what the
U.N. says is the worst humanitarian crisis in decades.
In Jordan on his sixth trip to
the Middle East as secretary of state, Kerry flew Thursday to the Zaatari camp
north of Amman, just south of the Syrian border. He was accompanied by Jordanian
Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh.
Kerry, who spent his time at the
camp's administrative base and did not tour the living quarters for security
reasons, met with six refugees who appealed for the U.S. and others to do more
militarily to support the opposition. During the 40-minute meeting, they
expressed their anger at what they called inaction and indifference on the part
of the international community.
"We are begging you for a
no-fly zone," said Jamalat Abu al-Hariri, who fled her home in Daara, the
Syrian city closest to Zaatari. All the refugees, including three more women
and a man from Daraa and one woman from Homs, urged Kerry to back a no-fly zone
and set up safe havens on Syrian soil.
Kerry responded: "A lot of
different options are under consideration. I wish it was very simple. As you
know, we've been fighting two wars for 12 years. We are trying to help in
various ways, including helping Syrian opposition fighters have weapons. We are
doing new things. There is consideration of buffer zones and other things but
it is not as simple as it sounds."
After the meeting Kerry told
reporters he understood the refugees' concerns but stressed that the U.S. is
the largest provider of humanitarian aid to the Syrian people, both inside the
country and in camps.
"I think they are frustrated
and angry at the world for not stepping up," he said. "If I was in
their shoes I would be looking for help wherever I could find it. I share their
passion and frustration for the plight that they face on a day-to-day
basis."
The camp houses about 105,000
people, making it the fourth largest city in Jordan, which is now home to more
than 600,000 Syrian refugees and is struggling to cope with their presence.
Turkey and Lebanon are also hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees.
The Zaatari camp was set up in
July 2012. At the high point in April, an average of 1,500 people arrived each
day. The current population is down from a high of nearly 130,000 because some
people are leaving some to go back to
join the fight, some to tend to properties in areas that are relatively safe
and some into Jordan proper if they can prove they have relatives already
there.
But people are still arriving,
although in much smaller numbers than before; most Syrians who lived closest to
the border are already in Jordan and the new arrivals are coming from farther
away. One hundred arrivals Wednesday night had spent 17 days on the road coming
from the Homs area, about 200 miles away. The start of Ramadan may also play a
role in the reduced influx of refugees.
Their stories are getting worse,
according to Killian Kleinschmidt, the camp manager for the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees.
"The conflict has reached a
level of brutality that is unbelievable," he told Kerry, who asked
questions about the camp's administration, security and living conditions.
Kleinschmidt said every family
can tell stories of rape, torture, arrest and disappearances. Children draw
"horrible pictures of destruction," he said. Of the total camp
population, 60,000 are children and there are 10-12 births a day.
AP/REUTERS