EU's Ashton heads for three-day trip to Israel, Palestinian areas

Jan 24, 2012, 9:54 GMT

Tel Aviv - EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said Tuesday she would push Israelis and Palestinians to continue peace talks begun this month in Jordan, during a three-day trip to the region.

Ashton is scheduled to land in Tel Aviv on Tuesday afternoon, less than 48 hours before the expiry of a deadline crucial to the talks.

'I'll be looking for positive signs from both sides that they are prepared to turn this progress into real gestures and negotiations,' Ashton said in a statement before leaving Brussels. 'Time is of the essence.'

Israeli and Palestinian envoys have over the past three weeks held a series of face-to-face talks in Amman, their first in over 15 months.

But the Palestinians have warned they will quit the talks after January 26, if Israel continues expanding settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. They have also urged Israel to free more Palestinian prisoners.

Ashton is scheduled to meet Israeli officials in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on Tuesday, before making the short journey to the West Bank city of Ramallah for dinner with acting Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, EU spokesman David Kriss told dpa.

Later Tuesday she is to hold a closed meeting with Tony Blair, the envoy of the quartet of international mediators - the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia - which have been trying to get Israel and the Palestinians back to negotiations.

Ashton is scheduled to travel to Gaza on Wednesday where she is to meet members of civil society, but no officials of the radical Islamist Hamas movement which governs the strip.

She may meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Amman on Thursday, though this was not yet final, spokesman Kriss said.

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