Last update - 00:00 16/03/2008
Chief Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to meet this week
By Reuters
Chief Israeli and Palestinian peace negotiators plan to meet later this week, restarting talks that were suspended after a deadly Israel Defense Forces offensive in the Gaza Strip, Israeli and Western officials said Sunday.
The negotiations, led by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and former Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qureia, have shown little sign of progress since they were launched at a peace U.S.-hosted conference in Annapolis, Maryland in November.
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 Gaza militants.
The U.S.-backed peace talks have also been bogged down by disputes over Israeli plans to expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The construction plans have 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 Islamists seized Gaza in June, wants to reach a full-fledged agreement allowing him to declare Palestinian statehood.
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 militants in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as called for under the 2003 road map peace plan.
Israel has yet to meet its own commitments under the road map to halt all settlement activity and uproot Jewish outposts in the West Bank built without Israeli government authorization.
U.S. 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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