CAIRO - Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, chair of the Arab League's committee entitled to follow up the Middle East peace process, said he did he did "not expect anything" from the United States to revive talks between the Palestinians and Israel. "In light of the talks with Mitchell, the American mediator has nothing new to offer," he said late on Wednesday in a meeting of the committee in Cairo. The Arab League said there would be no resumption of negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel until the United States offered "a serious proposal" for ending the Middle East conflict. US Middle East envoy George Mitchell said earlier on Wednesday he would hold separate talks with the Israelis and Palestinians, whose face-to-face negotiations broke down in September over the issue of Israeli settlement building. Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said the body's peace process committee had "decided not to resume negotiations until a serious proposal is made allowing for an end to Arab-Israeli conflict". The Palestinians pulled out of the direct, US-backed negotiations when Israel refused to extend a 10-month freeze on West Bank settlement construction which ended on Sept. 26. The United States said last week it had been unable to persuade Israel to impose new restrictions on settlement building and it would resume indirect negotiations on the issues at the heart of the six-decade old conflict. Moussa did not specify whether the Arab opposition to negotiations included the indirect talks. Mitchell, who held talks with Moussa earlier on Wednesday, said both parties wanted Washington to continue to shepherd negotiations. "In the days ahead our discussions with both sides will be substantive one-way conversations with an eye on making real progress in the next few months on key questions of an eventual framework agreement," Mitchell told reporters.
