Olmert and Abbas to meet on key Mideast issues

Jericho (West Bank), Aug 6: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert meets Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank tomorrow, 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.

Israeli and Palestinian officials said the meeting would take place in the West Bank city of Jericho. Palestinian officials said Olmert would be the first Israeli prime minister to travel to a Palestinian city in more than six years.

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.

An Israeli government spokesman said most of the meeting would be one-on-one and focus on ''how to arrive at the two-state solution''.

Previous talks between Abbas and Olmert were largely restricted to financial and security issues and to creating a so-called political horizon, which Israel defined as the legal, economic and governmental structures of a Palestinian state.

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.

The last round of final status talks broke down six years ago and Israeli officials stressed that the talks getting under way between Olmert and Abbas tomorrow would fall far short of a resumption of final-status negotiations.

US-Sponsered Conference

If Olmert and Abbas agree on ''principles'', they will be presented to a US-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.

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

It is also uncertain how Abbas can deliver on any deal with Hamas Islamists, whose charter calls for Israel's destruction, in control of the Gaza Strip.

Independent Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi said Rice, who visited the region last week, made clear Bush would push for an agreement on a Palestinian state before leaving office.

But she added: ''It's not just good intentions. We need to see those translated into concrete plans.'' Israeli officials said the proposed agreement on principles would try to find common ground on the explosive issue of refugees and would broadly call for Israel to withdraw from about 90 percent 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 U.S. President Bill Clinton offered before he left office: up to 97 percent of the West Bank and 100 percent of the Gaza Strip.

Ben-Ami said Israeli leaders were deeply sceptical about Abbas's ability to deliver on any peace deal.

Though he described himself as ''very pessimistic'', Ben-Ami said there might be hope for enacting a deal if Israel freed Marwan Barghouthi, the jailed Fatah uprising leader seen as a possible successor to Abbas. Abbas has repeatedly asked Olmert to release Barghouthi and was expected to do so again on Monday.

Ben-Ami said releasing Barghouthi could create the ''revolutionary envelop'' that Abbas needs. ''In the framework of an agreement, this would be a wise step to take,'' he said.

Reuters>