End of the negotiations: Martin Indyk dissolves Negotiating Team and packs his bags

The mission of US envoy Martin Indyk has come to an end, as he announced on Wednesday that he is planning, during the upcoming days, to dissolve his team and return to the United States. A US official said that the United States does not intend to put efforts to revive the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians in the near future.

The Israeli newspaper Maariv reported on its website that Indyk will end his mission in the next few days and will announce the dismantling of the US negotiating team after talk efforts between Israel and the Palestinian Authority have collapsed. Indyk will hand over the responsibility of handling communication between the two sides to Assistant Secretary of State Frank Lowenstein.

The website quoted an official from US State Department stating that the United States does not intend to make any new initiatives in the foreseeable future towards recommencing negotiations. Naturally, the process will be renewed at some point, but it is uncertain whether Secretary of State John Kerry or whoever succeeds him will be responsible for that, he added.

Indyk will return to the United States and reassumes his previous post as Vice President of the Brookings Institute. He has given a notice to Brookings about his intention to return back to his old position. A US official quoted by the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth accused Israel of being responsible for the failure of negotiations because of its settlement expansion policies. It is widely believed in Israel that it is Indyk who made these remarks, which sparked uproar in the Israeli media, on condition of anonymity, although the White House denied that Indyk had made such remarks.