Abbas close to agreement on direct talks

Occupied Jerusalem: Palestinian President Mahmmoud Abbas is very close to agreeing to direct talks with Israel, EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said in a letter to foreign ministers on Friday.

Abbas "has requested a few more days for final consultations with Arab partners as well as with the Fatah and PLO executive bodies," Ashton wrote, and "should be in a position to give a definitive answer by Sunday or early next week."

Moving from indirect talks to direct negotiations on the Middle East conflict may yield little unless Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a surprise in store, says a US veteran of the peace process.

Middle East adviser Aaron David Miller was addressing reports that the Palestinians may be about to accede to Netanyahu's repeated call for face-to-face talks instead of indirect negotiation.

Netanyahu may be keen to deal with the Palestinians without an American "babysitter" present, he said. But simply changing the format of negotiations means little and could backfire on Obama, who is also pushing for direct talks.

The history of Middle East negotiations, according to Miller, shows that indirect talks have often been more successful.

"Before I left government, between the years of 1993 and 2003, direct talks on (Middle East) permanent status issues have started 10 times," said Miller, now a policy analyst at the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington.

The problem is that even if the two sides can now agree on sitting face-to-face in the same room, they are so far apart and entrenched on the main issues that there is little hope that these talks will not fail like all others have before them.

The big issues are the competing claims on occupied Jerusalem as a capital, a fair settlement for Palestinian refugees, the fate of Jewish colonies in the West Bank and whether Israel would be able to patrol the international borders of a Palestinian state.

"The reality is that direct negotiations have never been a necessary component," said Miller. With the exception of the 1994 peace pact between Israel and Jordan, the record shows direct talks are "clearly not sufficient to generate an agreement".