Olmert, Abbas meet on key West Asia issues

JERICHO, West Bank, Aug 6 (Reuters) Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank today, opening talks on broad ''principles'' for a Palestinian state ahead of a conference later in the year.

After months of resistance, Olmert agreed to expand the scope of discussions with Abbas to include ''fundamental issues'' that are key to creating a state and ending the conflict, US and Palestinian officials said.

But it is unclear whether Olmert, whose popularity plummeted after last year's inconclusive war in Lebanon, can make major concessions -- particularly to uproot Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

It is also uncertain how Abbas can deliver on any deal with Hamas Islamists, whose charter calls for Israel's destruction, in control of Gaza. Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said ''the Israeli enemy'' was exploiting the talks to improve its image and would give the Palestinian people nothing in return.

Olmert's office declined to spell out which key issues would be on the agenda. But Abbas aide Saeb Erekat said they were three so-called final-status issues of common borders and the status of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees.

Under heavy security, Olmert and Abbas met at a resort hotel in Jericho, less than a kilometre from the last Israeli checkpoint at the entrance to the West Bank city.

Palestinian officials said Olmert was the first Israeli prime minister to visit a Palestinian city in over six years.

''OPEN DISCUSSION'' David Baker, an Israeli government spokesman, said Olmert and Abbas ''will not be negotiating about final-status issues''.

But Baker described the talks as ''an open discussion'' in which ''anyone can raise any issue he wants''.

Israeli officials said the goal was to reach agreement on a set of common principles on borders, refugees and other key issues without filling in the most divisive details, such as which Jewish settlements would have to be uprooted.

If Olmert and Abbas agree on ''principles'', they will be presented to a U.S.-sponsored conference expected to be held in November, Israeli and Western officials said.

Olmert and Abbas would then set up working groups to begin negotiating the details, according to Western officials.

Seeking Arab support to contain bloodshed in Iraq and counter Iran's nuclear programme, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is pushing for progress on the Palestinian front in President George W Bush's last 17 months in office.

''It's a prelude to something serious,'' Michael Williams, the UN's West Asia envoy, said of the proposed principles.

The last round of final-status talks broke down six years ago.

Israeli officials said the proposed agreement on principles would broadly call for Israel to withdraw from about 90 per cent of Palestinian territory.

Shlomo Ben-Ami, Israel's foreign minister when final status peace negotiations collapsed in 2001, said he doubted the Palestinians would go for anything less than what US President Bill Clinton offered before he left office: up to 97 percent of the West Bank and 100 percent of the Gaza Strip.

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