EGYPTIAN officials are exerting continuous efforts to put the peace process back on track. Egypt's General Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman will visit Israel this week to meet Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres. The visit aims at renewing peace talks with the Palestinians after the recent stalemate over Israel's refusal to renew a freeze in West Bank settlement construction. The 10- month freeze that Israel placed on building new settlements ended late September. It declined to renew it afterwards despite international and US pressure. Suleiman's visit to Israel comes less than a week after his visit to Ramallah along with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit. The two delivered a message from President Hosni Mubarak to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas regarding the Egyptian assessment of the developments in the negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis, as well as Palestinian inter-reconciliation. The goal of the visit, as Abul-Gheit said in a press conference with Abbas after their meeting, was to meet the Palestinian demand, which has Arab support, for a complete halt to settlements in order to clear the way for a return to negotiations. "We are still working with the Americans and the Israelis but until now there has not been the desired breakthrough," Abul-Gheit said. Abbas told the press conference he was still mulling alternative paths to statehood, confirming that he has seven alternatives. "We have discussed our options but our first option is to return to direct negotiations if Israel halts all settlement activity," he said. Abul-Gheit and Suleiman also visited Jordan to deliver another message from Mubarak to King Abdullah on the latest developments in the region, particularly challenges facing peace efforts. They also discussed efforts under way to overcome obstacles hindering the resumption of direct Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. The two sides agreed that talks should be based on clear terms of references that address all final status issues and reach a two-state solution that guarantees the establishment of an independent and viable Palestinian state. Abdullah emphasised the need to intensify international and regional efforts to achieve tangible progress towards resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the importance of continuous coordination and consultation between Jordan and Egypt to build unified positions. After more than a year of US-led shuttle diplomacy, the latest round of direct talks was launched in Washington in September in the presence of US President Barack Obama, Netanyahu, Mubarak and Abdullah. But the negotiations came to a halt three weeks later when a 10-month partial moratorium on settlement construction in the West Bank expired. Arab foreign ministers have given Washington a month -- the deadline ends by the end of this week -- to resolve the impasse before they meet to discuss alternatives to the negotiations. However, there has been little sign of progress during that month. The Palestinians view the presence of 500,000 Israelis in more than 120 settlements scattered across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as a major obstacle to the establishment of their promised state. Netanyahu said negotiations are the only way to reach a peace accord, warning against attempts to "bypass the direct talks by going to international bodies". Last month, Netanyahu offered to renew the freeze if the Palestinians recognised Israel as a Jewish state, but the Palestinian leadership dismissed the proposal as unfair and unnecessary.
