The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Washington

US president-elect Barack Obama has vowed to take swift action on the Middle East peace process and Iran's nuclear ambitions but played for time to shut down the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

In an interview with ABC's "This Week" program broadcast Sunday, Obama defended his reluctance to speak out on Israel's bloody offensive in the Gaza Strip before he succeeds President George W. Bush on January 20.

But while he promised rapid efforts on the peace process and diplomatic engagement with Iran, Obama said it would be a "challenge" to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in his first 100 days in office.

Obama said he was building a diplomatic team so that "on day one, we have the best possible people who are going to be immediately engaged in the Middle East peace process as a whole." The team would "be engaging with all of the actors there" so that "both Israelis and Palestinians can meet their aspirations," Obama said. Until then, he said again that he would leave the Bush administration to speak on foreign policy.

Israel indicated for the first time Sunday that an end was in sight to its war on the Palestinian group Hamas, amid some of the heaviest clashes of an offensive that has killed nearly 900 people in the Gaza Strip.

Asked about Arab criticism of his relative silence on the bloodshed, Obama said "when you see civilians, whether Palestinian or Israeli, harmed, under hardship, it's heartbreaking."

"And obviously what that does is it makes me much more determined to try to break a deadlock that has gone on for decades now."

Under the Bush administration, the United States has been accused by the Palestinians of siding uncritically with Israel to the detriment of the peace process overall.

Obama stood by his words of July, during a visit to Israel, when he had said: "If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that. I would expect Israelis to do the same thing."

Obama meanwhile took note of a warning from former US defense secretary William Perry Thursday that he would likely face a "serious crisis" over Iran's nuclear ambitions in his first year in office.