Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday he had reason to hope stalled peace talks with the Palestinians could resume within weeks.
"I have a basis to hope, in a realistic way, that in the coming weeks we will renew the peace process with the Palestinians," Netanyahu said at a keynote national security conference in Herzilya, near Tel Aviv.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, asked in Washington about the prospect of talks, said the United States hoped to relaunch talks as soon as possible.
"I'm not going to pre-empt any announcement that might come from the parties because when they're ready to make such a statement, they will," she told reporters.
Netanyahu reiterated Israel was ready to renew without preconditions the talks that have not convened since a Gaza war erupted in December 2008.
"I hope that if there's a will on the Palestinian side, not only to build the Palestinian economy and institutions but to start building peace itself ... if the desire is there, we will see the resumption of the process in the coming weeks," he said.
Nabil Abu Rdainah, an aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, told Reuters in response: "We are ready to resume negotiations within days if Netanyahu commits to freezing settlement (construction), including Jerusalem."
Abbas has rejected a temporary freeze ordered by Netanyahu in November on settlement building in occupied land as insufficient.
Israel has refused to halt construction in East Jerusalem, which it captured in a 1967 war and annexed as part of its capital in a move not recognized internationally. Palestinians want the city to be capital of a future state.
Netanyahu's upbeat comments followed weeks of renewed efforts by U.S. President Barack Obama's peace envoy, George Mitchell, to get the sides back to the negotiating table, which had thus far turned up no results.
Clinton, noting months of intense diplomacy by Mitchell, said the United States believed that talks should be based on borders prior to the 1967 war, when Israel occupied the West Bank, while taking into account Israel's desire to retain major West Bank settlement blocs.
"We've made clear that we think all of the main issues have to be on the table and the parties have to work through them and come to resolution. And we'd like to see that start soon and move as quickly as possible forward," she said.
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