Abbas, Olmert meet in Jerusalem (3rd Roundup)

Mar 12, 2007, 0:11 GMT

Jerusalem/Ramallah - Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held talks for about two hours Sunday evening in Jerusalem in their third meeting since December 24.

The first part of the meeting was attended by the leaders as well as their delegations, before the two continued discussions in private. Olmert and Abbas agreed to continue to meet regularly.

Prior to the meeting, aides said the talks were simply aimed at keeping open their communication channels.

An Israeli government official said the meeting was 'positive and constructive,' while senior Fatah member Mohammed Dahlan, who participated in the session, said it was 'difficult and open.'

After the meeting, Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said in a news conference in Ramallah that it was 'frank, in depth and positive.' He noted that several difficulties and controversial points were raised.

During the meeting, Olmert demanded that Abbas work to relase captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit being held by militant groups in Gaza, and Abbas replied that Shalit would be released soon, before the formation of a new Palestinian unity government, according to an Israeli official.

The Palestinian side also raised the matter of Palestinian prisoners, including several lawmakers, in Israeli jails.

Abu Mujahed, spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees, one of the groups involved in the June 25 cross-border raid in which Shalit was captured, said Sunday night that the soldier will not be released until the group's demands have been met, including the release of prisoners.

Olmert told Abbas that the Karni Crossing, the main commercial crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip, will have longer operating hours and will work at maximum capacity.

He told Abbas that the Israeli government would not recognize a Palestinian Authority whose members do not accept the three conditions of the Mideast Quartet - the United States, European Union, Russia and the United Nations - for renouncing violence, recognizing Israel and respecting previous agreements.

Hamas, which will have the largest number of ministers in the unity government, has refused these demands.

Negotiations on the national unity government between the ruling Hamas movement and Abbas' Fatah faction are in an advanced stage, and the new cabinet is expected to be announced in the coming days.

In the meeting, Abbas raised the matter of the 2002 Saudi-led Arab League peace proposal as a basis for negotiation. Earlier Sunday, Olmert said that Israel does not entirely reject the proposal, which calls for Arab recognition of the Jewish state in return of withdrawal from territories occupied in the 1967 war.

'We have said more than once that the Saudi initiative is a matter which we would be ready to treat seriously, and our position has not changed,' Olmert told his ministers at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.

He said that Israel hoped the plan's 'positive elements' would be emphasized at a meeting of Arab heads of state in Riyadh, something that could 'improve the chances of negotiations between us and the Palestinian Authority.'

The Saudi plan was first proposed in 2002 and adopted later that year at an Arab League summit in Beirut. Arab leaders have stressed that the plan will not be altered, despite Israel's opposition to a clause calling for Palestinian refugees and their descendents to be allowed to return to the homes they fled or were evicted from in what is now Israel.

Israel fears that an influx of Palestinian refugees into its borders would change the demographic balance between Jews and Muslims and lead eventually to Israel being replaced by a bi-national state or one with a Muslim majority.