US Proposes Extending Settlement Freeze
Laura Rozen reports:
The U.S. is proposing that Israel extend a partial West Bank settlement freeze for 60 days.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has returned to Israel after more than a week in the United States with a package of U.S. ideas that include extending the freeze that expired over the weekend by 60 days, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s David Makovsky told POLITICO.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Barak at his Caesaria residence as well as with Middle East Quartet envoy Tony Blair about the U.S. package, Makovsky said.
Netanyahu also spoke again with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told journalists Monday evening.
Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell is flying back to the region tonight with his deputy David Hale and the NSC’s Dan Shapiro, the State Department said, and will be meeting with the Israeli and the Palestinian parties later in the week.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said in Paris Monday that he would refrain from issuing an announcement on whether he would stay or leave Israeli-Palestinian direct talks until an Oct. 4 meeting of the Arab League.
That gives U.S. negotiators a week to try to salvage the talks.
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