Israel-Palestine resume peace talks in Washington on July 29, US says

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, center, chairs a session of the Palestinian cabinet in the West Bank city of Ramallah, July 28, 2013. (Photo : AP Photo/ Xinhua, Issam Rimawi, Pool)

The Israelis and the Palestinians are set to resume their peace talks in Washington D.C. on Monday, the U.S. State Department said on Sunday. Secretary of State John Kerry extended his invitation to both sides in his phone talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

The top American envoy “personally extended an invitation to send senior negotiating teams to Washington to formally resume direct final status negotiations,” Psaki said in a statement, adding “Initial meetings are planned for the evening of Monday July 29 and Tuesday July 30.”

The initial meetings, which come as a direct result of Kerry’s six trips to the Middle East region since he took office on Feb. 1, will be attended by Israel’s chief negotiator and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Yitzhak Molcho, Netanyahu’s personal envoy.

The Palestinians will be represented by chief negotiator Saeb Erekat and Mohammad Shtayyeh, a senior member of Abbas’ Fatah party, Psaki said.

“As Secretary Kerry announced on July 19 in Amman, Jordan, the Israelis and Palestinians had reached agreement on the basis for resuming direct final status negotiations,” she said. “The meetings in Washington will mark the beginning of these talks.”

“They will serve as an opportunity to develop a procedural workplan for how the parties can proceed with the negotiations in the coming months,” she added.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, center, attends the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Sunday, July 28, 2013. (Photo : AP Photo/Ronen Zvulun, Pool)

The Israeli government on Sunday approved the release of 104 veteran Palestinian prisoners during the upcoming negotiations, which will last at least nine months, meeting a demand by the Palestinians for the resumption of talks.

The Palestinians have also conditioned resumed talks on Washington’s guarantee of future negotiations based on the borders prior to the 1967 war and Israel’s halt of settlement activities, while Israel has rejected talks with preconditions. Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem in the war, territories the Palestinians want as their future state.

Peace talks between the two parties have gone off and on during the past two decades, and Netanyahu and Abbas last talked to each other for about 16 hours in a period of three weeks in September 2010, under the mediation of the Obama administration, before leaving the negotiation table over Israel’s refusal to extend a ban on settlement building in the West Bank.

Israeli-Palestinian final status negotiations cover Jerusalem, the Jewish settlements, borders and refugees, the so-called core issues between the two sides. <Xinhua/NEWSis>