08 January 2008
Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, and Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas are to meet on Tuesday in a last-minute attempt to get peace talks going before the first presidential visit by George W. Bush to the Middle East starting on Wednesday. The two sides, bogged down by a dispute over Jewish settlement expansion near Jerusalem, have yet to set up working groups to try to resolve many of the thorniest issues in the conflict. The delay in reaching a deal on how to conduct the talks underscored the large hurdles facing Bush in meeting his goal of getting Olmert and Abbas to reach an agreement within a year.
Ahead of Bush's arrival, Abbas made clear his goal was to push for a full stop to settlement activity in the West Bank. Bush has called settlement expansion an "impediment" and said he would raise the issue with Olmert. The Israeli PM last week ordered a de-facto halt to new construction projects in the West Bank, but has not called off plans to build hundreds of new homes in an area near Jerusalem. President Bush is to meet separately with Olmert in Jerusalem and Abbas in Ramallah.
Meanwhile, the British prime minister Gordon Brown has proposed to convene an international Israeli-Palestinian peace conference in London in March, as a follow-up to the Annapolis meeting in November 2007.
