Livni urges Israeli parties to unite under Kadima

By Louis Charbonneau

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said on Thursday that she continues to hope for a peace deal with the Palestinians this year and called on all parties that support peace to unite.

Speaking to reporters after meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Livni said she has been striving to reach an agreement with the Palestinians.

"We promised to make all the efforts to do so during this year. We continue to do so," she said, echoing comments from the White House on Wednesday. Livni is Israel's chief negotiator in the U.S.-brokered negotiations with the Palestinians aimed at getting a comprehensive peace agreement.

The Palestinians have complained that Israeli plans to expand a settlement in the Palestinian territories was undermining the peace process. Livni said both sides had complaints but these should not be allowed to harm the talks.

"There are some excuses that all of us can use or abuse in order to say something about the peace process or the peace negotiations," Livni said.

Livni did not directly comment on opposition Likud party leader Benjamin Netanyahu's call for snap elections after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced his resignation when his Kadima party chooses a new leader in September.

However, she indicated that her party wanted to form a government without an early election, calling on all parties that support an agenda of strengthening Israel's security and combating existing threats from abroad to unite under the centrist Kadima party.

"Kadima is the party that should lead those processes," she said in an unofficial translation of comments in Hebrew.

"I will continue to call on any party that can be a partner to this agenda and could represent those interests to put aside all these internal calculations" and join Kadima, she added.

Livni said Olmert, who has been plagued by scandals and accusations of corruption, had made the right decision, adding that it was now up to Kadima to reorder itself.

"Yesterday's announcement was not very easy for the prime minister to make. It was the right thing to do. The Kadima party has to regroup and do what Kadima was formed to do."

In the short term, she said, changes on the domestic political scene will have no impact on Israeli policy.

"The fact that there are internal changes does not change the fact that a threat exists," she said. "It doesn't change the interests of Israel that we are obligated to represent."

She reiterated that Iran's nuclear program, which Israel and Western nations say is aimed at producing atomic weapons, remains a major threat to Israel. Tehran says its nuclear program is aimed solely at the peaceful generation of power.

Livni, 50, is widely seen as the most likely successor to Olmert in Kadima.

(Additional reporting by Megan Davies; Editing by Eric Walsh)