The United States expects to reconvene Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in an indirect format in the coming days, a U.S. spokesman said on Wednesday after the U.S. envoy met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"We hope and expect formally to move forward with proximity talks before Senator (George) Mitchell leaves the region on Sunday," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in Washington after Mitchell's three hours of talks with Netanyahu.
Crowley said Mitchell, in the Middle East for the latest of more than a dozen rounds of shuttle diplomacy in the past year, had held a "good and productive" meeting with Netanyahu in Jerusalem and that the two would meet again on Thursday.
Nir Hefez, a spokesman for Netanyahu, issued only a terse statement saying the Israeli leader and Mitchell had held "a working meeting of about three hours" and agreed to meet again.
An Israeli political source speaking on condition of anonymity said an expected announcement of "proximity" talks had not been made because Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had not stated his agreement to join them.
Mitchell will meet Abbas on Friday and Saturday, U.S. officials said.
Abbas, who received a nod from the Arab League on Saturday for the U.S.-brokered talks, was awaiting formal approval from the Palestine Liberation Organisation's Executive Committee, scheduled to meet on Saturday, before he takes part, his spokesman, Nabil Abu Rdainah, said earlier.
"If the executive approves these indirect negotiations, all the final-status issues will be on the table for discussion," Rdainah said. "Absolutely no issue will be excluded and Jerusalem will be the top priority."
Israeli leaders have said the Palestinians can raise core issues in the indirect talks but only direct negotiations can resolve them.
The indirect format for talks would involve Mitchell shuttling between the two sides.
Washington opted for this method of negotiation after failing to narrow differences over Jewish settlements built in occupied land enough to resume face-to-face talks, which the two sides have not held in 18 months.
The period without peace talks has included Israel's Gaza war, election of a right-wing Israeli government and entrenched rule in the Gaza Strip by Hamas Islamists opposed to the U.S. peace efforts.
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