Olmert, Abbas to meet in Jerusalem

Jerusalem, Aug 28: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert hold talks in Jerusalem today, the latest in a series of meetings to warm relations since Abbas's Islamist rivals seized the Gaza Strip.

The meeting will take place at the prime minister's residence in Jerusalem and is part of a series of discussions leading up to a US-sponsored Middle East conference expected to be held in November to try to revive peacemaking now that Abbas has dismissed a Hamas-led government elected last year.

Abbas formed a new administration in the larger, Israeli-occupied West Bank after the Islamists, shunned by the West, routed Abbas's secular Fatah forces in Gaza in June.

Abbas voiced concern on Monday that much has yet to be agreed notably the timing, participants and agenda before the conference, which US President George W Bush offered as a way to kick-start talks on establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza after seven years of angry stand-off.

''There are no answers to these questions,'' he said after talking with the US secretary of state by telephone. ''I spoke with Dr Condoleezza Rice today and she has no answers either.'' He said the conference would be a ''waste of time'' if it stuck to a ''declaration of principles'' a phrase used by some Israeli officials to describe what they may offer in answer to demands for the rapid, final negotiation of a Palestinian state.

Israeli and Palestinian officials emerged from an Aug 6 summit in the West Bank city of Jericho with differing explanations on whether ''fundamental'' issues to be discussed soon should include those referred to as ''final status'' matters of borders and the future of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees.

Reuters>