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Jerusalem (AFP) Nov 4, 2010 Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu was on Thursday to meet Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman in Tel Aviv for talks expected to focus on the deadlocked peace talks, a government source said. "He will meet Omar Suleiman in Tel Aviv during the afternoon," the source told AFP on condition of anonymity, without giving further details. The two were expected to discuss moves to reinvigorate peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, which have been in deep freeze since the end of September following the end of a temporary ban on West Bank settlement construction. Egypt's official MENA news agency confirmed the visit and said Suleiman would besides Netanyahu also meet with President Shimon Peres and Defence Minister Ehud Barak. The visit, MENA said, is aimed at "trying to find a solution to the question of settlement construction in order to end the impasse in the negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis." Last week, Suleiman visited the West Bank with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit for talks with Mahmud Abbas. The Egyptians reiterated Arab support for the Palestinian leader's demand that Israel reimpose the moratorium before talks can be restarted. Direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians began on September 2 but lasted for barely three weeks before shuddering to a halt over the settlement issue. Last month, Arab foreign ministers said they would give Washington until early November to find a way out of the impasse, but there has been little sign of progress. The ministers are expected to meet in the coming weeks to decide on a response to the stalled talks. The Palestinians view the presence of 500,000 Israelis in more than 120 settlements scattered across the occupied West Bank, including annexed east Jerusalem, as a major obstacle to the establishment of their promised state. Israel has so far refused to renew the moratorium and insisted the thorny issue of Jewish settlements be resolved as part of a final peace deal.
earlier related report Speaking on a visit to New Zealand, Clinton added she believed the talks that began in September would continue despite Palestinian threats to quit them over Israel's refusal to halt settlement building in the West Bank. "I do intend to see Prime Minister Netanyahu when he is in the United States next week," Clinton told reporters in the New Zealand capital of Wellington, near the end of her two-week tour of Asian countries. Netanyahu said he would fly to the United States this coming weekend for talks on the Middle East peace process and to speak of the need to combat international terrorism. But Netanyahu will not be meeting US President Barack Obama, who will be travelling in Asia at the time. Clinton said details of her planned meeting with Netanyahu were still being worked out. "I want to reiterate that we are working on a non-stop basis with our Israeli and Palestinian friends to design a way forward in the negotiations," the chief US diplomat said. "I'm convinced that both (Israeli and Palestinian) leaders... are committed to pursuing the two-state solution and it is clear that that can only be achieved through negotiations," she said. "So I am very involved in finding the way forward and I think that we will be able to do so," she said. Israel and the Palestinians resumed direct peace negotiations on September 2, after a 20-month hiatus. But within weeks the talks ran aground following the expiry of a 10-month Israeli moratorium on the building of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. Netanyahu's visit coincides with the end of a one-month deadline that Arab leaders gave the United States to persuade Israel to renew the settlement moratorium. Netanyahu has steadfastly refused to reimpose the ban, while Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has declined to talk while Israel builds on land he wants for a future state, prompting intense US efforts to resolve the deadlock. The Israeli premier's trip to the United States will take place just days after Tuesday's midterm elections where Republicans captured the House of Representatives and slashed Democratic majorities in the Senate. Analysts consulted by AFP in Jerusalem have predicted that a weakening of Obama's Democratic Party in the congressional elections would make Netanyahu more resistant to demands for a new freeze on Jewish settlements. Clinton's spokesman Philip Crowley, speaking before the results were known, said the peace process would be unaffected regardless of the outcome. "Foreign policy in the United States is bipartisan most of the time, " Crowley said. "It is in pursuit of our national interests which don't change administration by administration or election by election."
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