Olmert, Abbas meet in Jerusalem to review talks' progress (Roundup)

Aug 31, 2008, 14:09 GMT

Jerusalem - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met Sunday for the second time in a month to discuss the progress of the peace negotiations.

Abbas was expected during the meeting to ask Israel to release more Palestinian prisoners, in addition to the 198 freed earlier this month as a goodwill gesture to the Palestinian leader.

Abbas also wants to secure the release of Marwan Barghouti, the imprisoned West Bank leader of the Fatah movement, who has been in an Israeli jail for the past six years.

The Israeli Ha'aretz daily meanwhile reported Sunday that Olmert is keen on getting the Palestinians to agree to a framework for a solution to the conflict before he leaves office.

According to the daily, the focus of Olmert's proposal is that negotiations over the future of Jerusalem - a potential deal-breaker - be held under an international umbrella, with 'governments and other international parties' able to contribute, but not impose, their views.

Israel has to date always rejected any international participation in debates over the future of Jerusalem, for example firmly ruling out proposals, from the original 1947 Palestine partition plan, that it become an international city.

Olmert also wants a five-year timetable for completing a deal on Jerusalem.

Abbas, however, has previously said that all core issues should be settled in the current talks, with none put off until later.

Israel captured East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East War and incorporated it into the boundaries of West Jerusalem shortly afterwards, insisting that the entire, united, city was its eternal capital.

Palestinians, however, want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.

The issue is a highly charged one, since East Jerusalem includes within its parameters the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif compound in the Old City.

For Jews, the compound is built on the site of their Biblical temple, while Muslims believe it marks the spot from where the prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven.

The Ha'aretz report caused an almost immediate furore in Israel, with the leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, one of Olmert's coalition partners, insisting the premier had neither the legal nor the public authority to make a deal with the Palestinians or to make a deal on Jerusalem, Judaism's holiest city.

'It is clear to everyone that Jerusalem's fate cannot be negotiated like it was a currency, and certainly not with international participation,' Eli Yishai said.

The Olmert-Abbas parley Sunday is expected to be the last between the two men before Olmert leaves office.

The Israeli premier, mired in corruption investigations, announced in July that he will step down once his Kadima party chooses a new leader and his successor forms a new government.

The Kadima primaries are scheduled to take place on September 17.