The United States has proposed new talks in a push to reach a deal on Palestinian statehood before President George W. Bush leaves office in January, the chief Palestinian negotiator said on Saturday. Ahmed Qurie said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had invited the Israelis and Palestinians to a series of trilateral discussions in New York and Washington.
He added that if Israel changed some of its positions on key issues, "we can reach a deal by the end of this year". Earlier this month Qurie said it would "take a miracle" to reach agreement in 2008. It was unclear what had changed since.
Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said some progress had been made and a deal was "doable, but none of the issues have been agreed yet". Qurie said negotiations were at a similar point to the one they reached in 2000 when statehood talks in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Taba ended without agreement.
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