JERUSALEM: A top European Union official said Monday that renewal of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks could be announced in late September. The EU s foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he expected a plan to reopen negotiations to emerge with the opening of the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 23. I sense...that we will have some kind of statement, some kind of proposal, that will come probably around the days of the United Nations, Solana told reporters between meetings with Israeli leaders. Israeli and Palestinian officials last week confirmed that efforts were under way to arrange a meeting between their leaders at the UN next month. Frequent meetings between Israeli and Palestinian officials during the administration of former Israeli premier Ehud Olmert produced no agreement, and talks petered out after Israel launched a large-scale military offensive into the Gaza Strip in December to stop daily rocket attacks by Gaza militants. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who took office in March, says he is willing to renew talks. But the Palestinians say he must first halt Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem - areas the Palestinians claim for a future state. Palestinian official Nabil Shaath said Monday that it was up to President Barack Obama to maintain his insistence on a settlement freeze or fail in his attempt to resuscitate negotiations. If Obama approves continuing settlement-building in Jerusalem, Obama has pulled out of the Middle East peace process, Shaath told foreign journalists in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Without Mr. Obama this time fully, categorically stopping all settlement activities it will be very, very difficult - impossible in fact - to restart the negotiating process with the Netanyahu government. The Obama administration has been pressing Israel for at least a temporary freeze. Netanyahu has said he wants a compromise that would allow Israel to continue with some West Bank settlement construction while at the same time restarting peace talks with the Palestinians. He is adamant, however, that he will accept no restrictions in east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in 1967 and which the Palestinians see as their future capital. Israel claims all of Jerusalem. Solana said Monday that Israel and the U.S. were still trying to resolve the settlement issue. Solana was scheduled to visit Palestinian leaders in the West Bank later Monday, then fly on to Lebanon and Egypt.
