WASHINGTON // Middle East Quartet envoys meeting in Washington say "tough decisions" still need to be made to close the gaps between Palestinians and Israelis and bring them back to negotiations, according to a senior US administration official.
Representatives of the UN, Russia, the EU and the US met over a two-hour working dinner on Monday evening at the state department. Tony Blair, the Quartet's special envoy, also attended.
An administration official said afterwards that "tough decisions" were needed on both sides to secure a return to negotiations. The envoys, the official said, decided that more work needed to be done to close those gaps that were "impeding" progress, but that the Quartet remained committed to continuing "their intense engagement" with the parties.
The official declined to give details of the gaps, but said it was ultimately up to the Israelis and Palestinians to revive progress.
No official statement was made after the meeting.
The Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, said yesterday that he would take the Palestinian bid for statehood to the UN after the Quartet failed to reach a breakthrough.
"We will go to the United Nations and we hope the United States will not use its veto, but that we will go with its agreement," the Palestinian leader said after a meeting with the Greek president, Karolos Papoulias, in Ramallah. "The fact that there is no statement from the Quartet is a negative indication that there is deep division between them."
The Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erakat, said "there is no other option but to support the Palestinian plan to go to the United Nations to seek full membership for the state of Palestine on the 1967 borders".
He rejected any attempt to equate the Palestinian and Israeli sides and criticised any suggestion the two parties were equally to blame for the stalemate in negotiations, which have been on hold since last September.
The US official said the Quartet had decided more "quiet diplomacy" was needed to bring the parties closer first. The Quartet, the official added, remained committed to the framework for a solution that Barack Obama, the US president, laid out in May. The official also said it was not clear what the Palestinians intended to accomplish at the UN in September, where the Palestine Liberation Organisation has said it will seek admission as a full member.
For now, the official said, the Quartet, the international community and "certainly the United States is putting its emphasis on exploring whether, by closing gaps between the parties, we can give the alternative of a negotiation real traction".
Earlier on Monday, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, had said after meeting Catherine Ashton, the EU's foreign policy chief, that the US firmly believed that the only way toward a two-state solution was through negotiations rather than the UN.
"What we strongly advocate is a return to negotiations, because a resolution, a statement, an assertion, is not an agreement. And the path to two states living side by side in peace and security lies through direct negotiations."
okarmi@thenational.ae
* With additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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