[07/September/2010]
WASHINGTON, Sep. 7 (Saba) - Participants in the next round of the renewed Mideast peace talks next week will continue discussing "all of the core issues, " US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley was quoted on Tuesday by Kuwait News Agency (KUNA).

The next round of talks, which US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and US special Mideast envoy George Mitchell will join, will take place first in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, then in Jerusalem, Crowley noted during a department briefing.

"I am not going to predict at this point what the particular outcome of the meetings next week will be," he said. "We will get to next week, we will get to the meetings and see what progress has been made".
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet approximately every two weeks as the process continues "over weeks and months," Crowley said.

US officials are satisfied, based on last week's discussion, that Abbas and Netanyahu "have come with a seriousness of purpose, of determination to move forward," Crowley said. "We are gratified that the meetings last week took place despite the transparent attempts by Hamas to derail them before they got started".

Crowley was referring to an attack in the West Bank that resulted in the fatal shooting of four Israeli settlers.

"There will be times where, as we sense that the parties themselves are making progress, we can stay on the sidelines and provide appropriate support, " he said. "But there will be times that we anticipate going forward where there will be obstacles that they will confront, and ... we will be prepared to offer our advice and bridging proposals on how to overcome these obstacles".

The Palestinian delegation has said it will end the talks if the Israeli government on Sept. 26 lifts its freeze on Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank, as currently scheduled.

Saba