Last update - 00:00 22/06/2007
Mideast Quartet envoys due to meet in Jerusalem next week
By News Agencies
Envoys from the Quartet of Middle East peace brokers are to meet in Jerusalem on Tuesday, a day after Olmert and Abbas are due to attend a summit in Egypt.
Miri Eisin, a spokeswoman for Olmert, said "low-level officials" from the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia would meet. Sources in Jerusalem said the attendees would be special envoys rather than ministers.
Olmert is set to announce the release of frozen Palestinian tax funds as part of a "package of gestures" in the regional summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, diplomats and Israeli officials said Friday.
Sergei Yakovlev, a Russian Foreign Ministry envoy for Middle East peacemaking, said the envoys "will discuss the situation in the region, the talks for the Quartet and plans of action for the future," Russia's Interfax news agency reported.
A higher-level meeting of officials from the Quartet - the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations - was to have taken place Monday in Egypt. But that session was delayed to allow Quartet officials time to assess changes in the region after Hamas' violent takeover of the Gaza Strip last week.
There has been no official announcement from the Quartet of the planned meeting, but in Moscow, a Russian envoy said the meeting would take place.
Yakovlev said the envoys will discuss the situation in the region, the talks for the Quartet and plans of action for the future, Interax reported.
Peace efforts have been complicated by the emergence of a two Palestinian entities, one ruled by Hamas in Gaza and the other by Fatah in the West Bank. But moderate regional leaders have been quick to use this development to promote peacemaking between Israel and moderate Palestinians in the West Bank.