Talking gaining favor for Mideast issues

WASHINGTON, July 18 (UPI) -- Negotiating with enemies instead of shunning them may be signaling the United States, Israel and European allies are changing Mideast tactics, analysts said.

The shift is borne out by recent events -- U.S. and Iranian diplomats at the same table, an Israeli-Hezbollah prisoner swap, Syria's president welcomed in France and the United States considering setting up a diplomatic presence in Iran, The New York Times reported Friday.

"The overall picture is moving in the direction of cooling the political atmosphere," said Muhammad al-Rumaihi, a former government adviser in Kuwait and the editor of Awan, a Kuwaiti independent daily newspaper.

Allies and enemies alike are realizing that tactics they've been using for years to achieve their goals -- whether violence and terrorism or sanctions and isolation -- aren't working and pragmatically turned words instead of weapons, political analysts told the Times.

"We are seeing the outlines of a general thaw in the region," said Osama Safa, director of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies in Beirut. "You may have to deal with governments on political issues, but when it comes to security, they have to deal with non-state actors like Hezbollah and Hamas."