London, August 25: An Israeli official said on Monday that efforts were under way to hold a summit between the Israeli, Palestinian and US leaders next month to signal the relaunching of the stalled Mideast peace talks.
The proposed groundbreaking meeting between US President Barack Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas follows months of intense international pressure on Israel to halt Jewish settlement activity in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem.
The meeting would take place on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York next month, the senior official told AFP.
“We hope the conditions will ripen to allow a meeting with Abbas and Obama in New York as a symbolic launching of peace talks. This seems feasible at this point,” he said.
Israel is also hoping to hold lower level meetings with officials from Arab states that do not have diplomatic ties with the Jewish state, such as Qatar and Oman, as a gesture of goodwill, the official added.
Israeli ultra-nationalist Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Defence Minister Ehud Barack will also attend the annual UN conference.
Netanyahu on Sunday voiced hope to renew by the end of September the peace talks which were suspended last December in the wake of Israel’s deadly offensive in the Gaza Strip.
Washington has been pressing Israel to halt all settlement activities in the occupied territories, which the Palestinians have set as a condition for returning to the negotiations.
The US demand led to a rare public spat between the two close allies as Netanyahu insists on the Jewish state’s right to build in east Jerusalem and large settlement blocs.
But the hawkish premier, who will meet Obama’s Middle East envoy George Mitchell in London on Wednesday, has said he hoped to reach an agreement with the United States in the coming weeks.
Netanyahu has agreed to temporarily halt inviting construction tenders for Israeli homes in the occupied West Bank, which Obama termed a step in the right direction.
There was no immediate Palestinian or US reaction to the statement.
–Agencies