TEL AVIV-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday reaching a peace deal with the Palestinians would be "difficult but possible," acknowledging there was skepticism talks will succeed when they resume next month. In his first remarks to reporters since Israel and the Palestinians accepted on Friday an invitation by the United States and other powers to restart direct talks, Netanyahu said: "We want to surprise all the critics and skeptics. But to do that, we need a true partner on the Palestinian side. "I know there is deep skepticism. After 17 years have passed since the Oslo process, it's possible to understand why this skepticism exists," he said at the start of Israel's weekly cabinet meeting. He made no mention of a potential stumbling block once the talks start in Washington on September 2 - the scheduled end some three weeks later of Israel's 10-month limited moratorium on Jewish settlement building in the occupied West Bank. "Achieving a peace agreement between us and the Palestinian Authority is difficult, but possible," he said. Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said on Friday the Palestinians would pull out of the new talks if Netanyahu's government, which is dominated by pro-settler parties, announced new settlement construction. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Erekat said, sent a letter to that effect on Sunday to the Quartet of Middle East peace brokers -- the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia. Palestinians say they fear the settlements Israel has built on land captured in a 1967 war will deny them a viable state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. Gaza is now under the control of Hamas Islamists opposed to the US-backed peace efforts. The talks are the latest chapter in a peace process which, interrupted by several years of violence earlier this decade, has given Palestinians limited self-rule but no state. The borders of the Palestinian state, the fate of Jewish settlements built on occupied land and the future of Jerusalem are among the tough issues that the negotiators will face and which past talks have failed to resolve. Netanyahu has proposed a demilitarized Palestinian state, with Israeli forces on its eastern border. He has said the future of settlements and other core issues of the conflict can be raised in negotiations.
