TEL AVIVE-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his recent consultations with US, European and Arab leaders may soon pave the way for direct peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. Meetings with US President Barack Obama, Jordan's King Hussein, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and other leaders have “created a more comfortable climate for the start of direct talks between the state of Israel and the Palestinian Authority,” Netanyahu said in remarks broadcast from the Cabinet meeting on Israel Radio Sunday. Netanyahu told Cabinet ministers from his Likud Party that the talks could resume as soon as the middle of this month, Israel Radio reported separately. Arab foreign ministers gave their backing last week to resuming direct Israeli-Palestinian talks, which stalled 19 months ago. Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erakat said Sunday that Netanyahu must still agree to stop all construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank before talks can resume. “The minute he announces from his cabinet that he intends to stop settlements, we will go immediately to negotiations,” Erakat said in a phone interview from his office in the West Bank town of Jericho. Israeli President Shimon Peres traveled to Cairo today to meet with Mubarak and discuss Middle East peace efforts, his office said in an e-mailed statement. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas went to Cairo July 29 to present the 13 foreign ministers who make up the Arab Peace Initiative Committee with the results of indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinians conducted by US Middle East envoy George Mitchell. Afterwards, the group of Arab leaders offered support for resuming direct talks, as long as a schedule and an agenda are agreed on beforehand, according to Qatar's Foreign Minister Hamad Bin Jasim Bin Jaber al-Thani. Mubarak met a day earlier with Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah. Abdullah is the sponsor of a draft peace agreement drawn up in 2002 and endorsed by 22 countries that proposes normalising relations between Israel and Arab states in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories. Abbas suspended peace negotiations with Israel after its 2008 military offensive in the Gaza Strip, which is controlled Hamas.
