Amid Ukraine crisis, Obama to meet Netanyahu on Mideast peace

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama took a break from the Ukraine crisis to hold potentially difficult talks yesterday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on US efforts to keep Middle East peace negotiations alive.

With time running out for a framework Israeli-Palestinian deal to salvage a troubled US-brokered peace process, Obama and Netanyahu sparred in public comments in the run-up to a meeting that will also focus on Iran’s nuclear programme.

Netanyahu arrived in Washington to a veiled warning from Obama that he would tell the Israeli leader the United States would find it harder to defend Israel against efforts to isolate it internationally if peace efforts failed.

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