SHARM EL-SHEIKH: Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak called on Palestinians on Wednesday to seize the opportunity to resume peace talks, as both sides failed to agree on the conditions for negotiations.
Barak told reporters in Egyptian Sharm El-Sheikh after talks with President Hosni Mubarak that Israel had already made the unprecedented move of partially freezing settlement building on Palestinian territory.
We accept the solution and vision of two states, we decided to recognize all agreements signed by previous governments, he said referring to hardline Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu s cabinet.
We hope that in current weeks the Palestinians will also see the opportunity that should be seized to resume negotiations, he said.
Hopes were raised for a resumption of talks, which were suspended in December 2008 when Israel launched its devastating offensive against Gaza.
Months of shuttle diplomacy US envoy George Mitchell have floundered on the Palestinian Authority s refusal to negotiate with Israel without a complete halt to settlement building in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas has said Israel s partial settlement freeze, which excludes building in annexed Arab east Jerusalem and the construction of public buildings in the West Bank, was not enough.
Mitchell, who was in the region again this week, presented Palestinian and Israeli leaders with a new initiative aimed at creating an atmosphere for the relaunch of peace talks, a Palestinian official told AFP.
Israel is also at an impasse with the Islamist Hamas movement, Abbas s rivals in the Gaza Strip, who are holding an Israeli soldier captured more than three years ago.
Hamas, which ousted Abbas s Fatah party from Gaza in 2007, said it will only release Gilad Shalit in return for nearly 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, including about 450 insurgents serving long terms in Israeli jails.
Barak discussed the prisoner exchange during his meeting with Mubarak, whose government helped mediate the talks, his office said in a statement.
During the press conference he maintained his government s usual secrecy on developments in the German-brokered talks, saying only that Israel would consider any reasonable proposal, but not at any price.
Hamas says the talks have been stalled by Israel s refusal to release a number of hardcore insurgents responsible for attacks on Israelis. -AFP
