Palestinians holding secret talks with Israel

MIDDLE EAST: Israeli and Palestinian officials have been holding talks through a "secret channel" with the aim of jumpstarting the stalled peace process, Palestinian sources told AFP on Sunday.

The officials involved have been Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, and Salam Fayyad, a former Palestinian finance minister, they said.

The trio have met twice in recent weeks, the sources said on condition of anonymity. "They discussed issues related to the final status agreement and the Arab initiative," one source said.

He was referring to a Saudi peace plan adopted by the Arab League in 2002 and the thorniest issues of the Middle East conflict which both sides have always accepted will be left to a final peace agreement.

A senior aide to Livni rejected the report.

"There has been no meeting between Minister Livni and Yasser Abed Rabbo recently, certainly not on issues of final status... The last time they met was several months ago," the aide said.

The Palestinian sources made their remarks as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas met in Jerusalem, with their third encounter in as many months failing to produce any major breakthroughs.

Abbas has on several occassions said that he favoured a "parallel channel" in talks with Israel, like the secret talks that resulted in the 1993 Oslo accords.

The secret discussions have touched on the most sensitive issues between the Israelis and the Palestinians, including the final borders of the Palestinians' promised state and the fate of Palestinian refugees and Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, the sources said.

The Arab peace plan of 2002 calls for a full Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian territories, including east Jerusalem, in return for a full normalization of relations with the Arab world.

Livni said earlier this month that the Jewish state could not accept the initiative as it stands.

Earlier on Sunday, Olmert said Israel was "ready to take seriously" the Arab initiative.

Meanwhile Abbas held talks on Sunday that yielded little sign of progress towards peace.

"The meeting was very frank and very difficult," said Mohammed Dahlan, a senior Abbas aide who attended part of the 2-1/2 hour session.

Olmert, in comments before hosting Abbas at his official Jerusalem residence, appeared to open the door to exploring whether a 2002 Saudi peace initiative could serve as an alternative track towards an Israeli-Palestinian settlement.

"Many issues were discussed including the national unity government, which the Palestinian side stressed was an internal Palestinian affair," Dahlan told Reuters.

"The prime minister presented the Quartet conditions and said that Israel cannot cooperate with a government or with a part of a government that does not respect these conditions," an Israeli government official said.

However, Olmert has promised to keep a channel of communication open with the moderate Abbas, a policy promoted by the United States, which plans to send Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice back to the region in the next few weeks.

Olmert and Abbas spent part of the session in face-to-face talks without aides present and agreed to talk "on a regular basis", an Israeli official said.

Before the meeting, the third Olmert and Abbas have held since December, both sides played down expectations of a breakthrough. Neither leader made statements at the start or end of the talks.

Meanwhile Al Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri criticised the Hamas leadership over its deal with Fatah.

"The leadership of Hamas surrendered to the Jews most of Palestine" to keep heading the Palestinian government, said the militant leader in an audio statement, parts of which were aired by Al Jazeera television.

Ramallah, Monday, AFP, Reuters