Two top aides to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert flew to Washington overnight ahead of expected peace talks, amid reports of a freeze on construction of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Olmert plans to freeze the growth of settlements as a concession to Palestinians ahead of the planned US-sponsored meeting.
Israel will announce a freeze on settlement construction and declare its willingness to remove "illegal outposts" before the conference due to be held later this year in Annapolis, Maryland, it quoted an official as saying. "Of the two, a settlement freeze is easier than evacuating the outposts, because this only involves a declaration, not a confrontation with settlers in the field," it quoted the unnamed official as saying.
Israel and the Palestinians have been struggling to thrash out an agreed joint document for the conference that would serve as the basis for future negotiations aimed at creating a Palestinian state.
But the two sides remain divided, with Palestinians wanting a document to address core issues of the conflict-borders, the fate of refugees, settlements and the status of Jerusalem-and Israelis favouring a looser declaration.
According to Haaretz, Washington has been demanding that Israel make "significant gestures" on settlements in return for postponing discussion of the core issues until after Annapolis. Olmert has vowed to proceed with peace talks on the basis of the 2003 roadmap peace plan, which calls on Israel to freeze settlement growth and to withdraw from outposts established after March 2001.
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