Obama Invites Abbas For Talks

RAMALLAH, West Bank: US President Barack Obama has invited Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for talks in Washington next month, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Sunday. The announcement was made as Obama’s Middle East envoy George Mitchell wound up a trip to the region to ramp up peace efforts.

The invitation was delivered by Mitchell when he met Abbas on Friday. Erekat said the exact date of the talks is yet to be determined.

The two leaders were expected to discuss efforts to revive peace talks suspended since Israel launched a devastating assault on Gaza in December 2008. Washington has not yet officially announced the invitation and a US official declined to comment on whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would also be invited.

Briefing the Israeli Cabinet on his meetings with Mitchell, Netanyahu said it would soon become clear whether peace talks would get under way. In a statement summing up his visit, Mitchell said he held "positive and productive talks" with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in an effort "to improve the atmosphere for peace and for proceeding with proximity talks,” a reference to indirect, US-mediated negotiations.

The United States has been pressing the two sides to return to negotiations for months, but the Palestinians have refused to do so without a complete freeze on Israeli settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, including annexed Arab East Jerusalem.

Netanyahu has given no ground publicly over US and Palestinian calls to halt the construction of homes for Jews on occupied territory, an issue that has opened a rift between Israel and the United States.

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