U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hinted Saturday that talks between Israel and the Fatah-PA are like the Oslo negotiations, which were conducted secretly and intensely.
Rice said she last met with the negotiating parties on Wednesday. Speaking before the Aspen Institute, she said: "They're negotiating seriously. And they are negotiating intensely. I cannot tell you that they are close to an agreement, but they are working at it very hard. They're trying to do it out of the glare of the media. It's sometimes forgotten that the most successful negotiation that the Palestinians and the Israelis ever had was Oslo, and nobody even knew, in 1993, that they were negotiating."