Region | Palestinian Territories
Israelis and Palestinians to restart dialogue
Chief negotiators agree to meet this week after Gaza offensive disrupted talks.
- Reuters
- Published: 00:30 March 17, 2008
- Useless petrol pumps were placed by protesters on a main road in Gaza city during a demonstration against Israeli sanctions.
- Image Credit: AP
Occupied Jerusalem: Chief Israeli and Palestinian peace negotiators plan to meet this week, restarting talks that were suspended after a deadly Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip, Israeli and Western officials said on Sunday.
The negotiations, led by Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and former Palestinian prime minister Ahmad Qurie, have shown little sign of progress since they were launched at a peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland.
An Israeli official speaking on condition of anonymity and a visiting Western envoy, who met with Qurie, said the chief negotiators have agreed to meet this week.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said he was not immediately aware of a specific date for a meeting.
Suspending negotiations
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas temporarily suspended the negotiations earlier this month after an Israeli offensive in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip killed more than 120 Palestinians, many of them civilians.
Israel said the incursion was meant to counter cross-border rocket fire by fighters.
The US-backed peace talks have also been bogged down by disputes over Israeli plans to expand Jewish colonies in the occupied West Bank. The construction has drawn fire from both the Palestinians and the United States, Israel's closest ally.
Abbas, whose authority has been limited to the West Bank since Hamas seized Gaza in June, wants to reach a full-fledged agreement allowing him to declare statehood.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said the goal of the peace talks was to reach an understanding this year on "basic principles" for a Palestinian state, with implementation only once Abbas reined in fighters in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as called for under the long-stalled "road map" peace plan.
Israel has yet to meet its own commitments under the road map to halt all colonisation activity and uproot Jewish colonies in the West Bank built without Israeli government authorisation.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Friday that neither Israel nor the Palestinians had done "nearly enough" to meet peacemaking obligations.
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