Olmert meets Abbas week before peace conference by Lucia Mitrova

On Monday, week before a U.S.-led peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to talk about their issues. Before the meeting there were voices coming from U.S. And Palestine demanding halting construction in the occupied West Bank in existing settlements. No new settlements was built in the West Bank for about 10 years, but settlers have set hilltop outpost, of course without the government permission. Olmert made a promise to remove the outposts, but did not say when. He also told his cabinet before the meeting with Abbas that, "there will be no new settlement and no land confiscations" and that Israel would fulfill it's obligations under the road map. Both Abbas and Erekat, try to draft a document addressing in general terms core issues. For instance topic about Palestinian refugees. As a gesture to Abbas, Erekat agreed to release 441 Palestinian prisoners. Initially, Abbas wanted 2,000 of them. "Both sides seem ripe for reaching an agreement before Annapolis," said Olmert's spokeswomen, Miri Eisin. "There is enough agreement on enough things that there isn't an atmosphere of crisis, although there are some issues that remain open." The meeting took about two hours. After that Erekat told the reporters: "Was the meeting difficult? Yes. Are there differences remaining? Yes." Israel, Palestine and U.S. Are hoping for Arab participation at Annapolis. This Friday Arab league foreign ministers meet in Cairo. They are about to decide to attend the peace conference or not.

by Lucia Mitrova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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