A planned Israeli-Palestinian summit to be held in Paris by the end of the month has been rescheduled, the Israeli prime minister’s office said on Saturday, a sign of increased strain over stalled peace talks.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to meet before the end of this month, although an exact date for the summit had not been set.
“Following joint consultations it has been agreed to set a new date for the preparatory meeting,” a statement from Netanyahu’s office said, adding there was no chance of holding it on Thursday as previously thought.
“We are looking for a new date that works for everybody, although there is nothing firm scheduled yet,” an Israeli government official said.
The talks were intended to prepare for a summit late next month of leaders from European and Mediterranean countries including Middle East players, Sarkozy said when he announced his invitation at the end of last month.
It would have been a first face-to-face meeting between Netanyahu and Abbas since the two restarted direct peace talks backed by the US in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, on Sept. 2 — talks that have since reached a standstill.
The Palestinians called off the direct talks when a 10-month Israeli freeze on new home building in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank expired at the end of last month.
Netanyahu, who heads a government dominated by pro-settler parties, has so far resisted US pressure to extend the freeze and said last week the Palestinians should recognize Israel as a Jewish state to secure such a gesture.
Abbas repeated the Palestinians’ longstanding rejection of that idea, which would amount to a major concession on an issue at the core of the six-decade-old conflict by effectively ruling out any return of Palestinian refugees to what is now Israel. Peace efforts appeared to run into further complications on Thursday when Israel issued building tenders for 238 housing units in East Jerusalem, which infuriated the Palestinians and which the US said was “contrary” to peace efforts.
The building plan envisages more construction in two densely populated Jewish “neighborhoods,” as Israel refers to them, in East Jerusalem and parts of the West Bank that it has annexed as part of its capital, a move that has never won international recognition.
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