Israel, Palestinians agree to more talks

September 3, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

In an early sign of promise, Israeli and Palestinian leaders pledged Thursday in a cordial first round of talks to keep meeting at regular intervals, aiming to nail down a framework for overcoming deep disputes and achieving lasting peace within a year.

As their facilitator-in-chief, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to rise above the suspicion and skepticism that has blocked peace efforts for decades.

The eventual aim is the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state beside a secure Israel.

Thursday’s results, in the first face-to-face peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians in nearly two years, were modest — and acknowledged as such by all sides. There was no detailed negotiation on any substantive issue, according to George Mitchell, the administration’s special envoy for Mideast peace, who had months of preparatory talks and participated in most of the day’s discussions.

Netanyahu and Abbas will meet again Sept. 14 and 15 in the Middle East, probably at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik, with Clinton and Mitchell attending. The two also agreed to meet roughly every two weeks after that — sometimes with U.S. officials present, other times not.

A major obstacle is looming: Israel’s moratorium on Jewish settlement construction in the disputed West Bank is due to expire Sept. 26. The Palestinians have said that unless the freeze is extended, the fledgling peace talks will collapse in short order.