Mitchell, Barak meet in bid to restart peace talks

U.S. President Barack Obama's Middle East envoy began a round of meetings on Saturday aimed at relaunching peace negotiations, while the Palestinian leader said he feared the 20-year-old peace process with Israel was close to collapse.

George Mitchell, the U.S. mediator, met Defense Minister Ehud Barak in Tel Aviv, an Israeli spokesman said. In keeping with Mitchell's low-key style, he made no public comment.

He was to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas a day later. Officials expect discussion on formats for the four months of "proximity talks" to which Abbas agreed last week after a year of demanding Israel end settlement building before negotiations could resume.

Clashes on Friday between Palestinians and Israeli forces at Jerusalem's Temple Mount compund drew a call for restraint all round from the UN Security Council and an accusation from Abbas that Israeli "provocation" aimed to wreck peace moves and risked sparking a "war of religion" across the Middle East.

Abbas, who won backing on Saturday from his Fatah party's Central Committee for the return to talks, accused Netanyahu of intransigence on Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory that, he said, had brought the peace process close to collapse.

"The peace process has almost reached a dead end," he said in a speech in Ramallah, citing Netanyahu's refusal to stand by compromise offers made by his predecessor before Abbas broke off prior negotiations in late 2008 over Israel's offensive in Gaza.

Despite a temporary, partial freeze on building in the West Bank, the expansion of Israeli settlements, as well as an Israeli heritage plan announced last month to include West Bank religious sites "threaten ... to open the door to a dark future that awaits us all," he said.

"The Israeli government continues to procrastinate to gain time and strengthen its control of the occupied territories to prevent any realistic possibility of establishing an independent, viable ... state of Palestine," Abbas added.

Netanyahu's government has said it is willing to discuss any issue with Abbas but has made clear that, particularly given the strength of Abbas' rivals in the hardline, Islamist Hamas movement which controls the Gaza Strip and is popular elsewhere, an early deal delivering a Palestinian state is unlikely.

Netanyahu has also dismissed calls for Israel to give up control of all Jerusalem and allow the east of the city to be the capital of such a Palestinian state.

A demonstration against Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem by several thousand Palestinians and Israeli peace activists passed off peacefully on Saturday night.

Sources on both sides have said they expect Mitchell to secure agreement on a format of talks between negotiators to begin possibly in Washington or elsewhere abroad fairly soon.

The sources also concur that the "proximity" element, whereby U.S. officials shuttled between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, may not last long before talks become more direct.

The "proximity" label may have helped Abbas retreat from his condition that a settlement freeze must precede talks. He won Arab League backing last week for four months of negotiation.

But sources on both sides said negotiators, long familiar with each other, may resume face-to-face talks before long.

Few on either side hold out much hope of a compromise and many question how far Obama will devote Washington's resources to this intractable problem at a time of competing challenges, not least Western efforts to curb Iran's nuclear program.

U.S. officials say details of how the negotiations will be resumed are likely after Mitchell ends his meetings on Monday.