Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) met on Monday, a first meeting between the two leaders in over 6 weeks. It was also the first meeting since Abu Mazen made his anti-Israel statements at the Arab League Damascus conference about two weeks ago and it is about 6 weeks ahead of the scheduled visit of US President George W. Bush, the impetus for the resumption of talks most believe.

Ahead of the meeting the prime minister stated, “It is not impossible. It depends on them and on us. It is not impossible… We want it and they want it… It takes time to deal with issues of the historic dispute between us.”

Emerging from the meeting, Olmert and Abu Mazen reiterated their commitment to reaching an agreement by the end of 2008.

Next week, United States National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley will be arriving in the region in the hope of pressuring the sides to move forward on the diplomatic channel ahead of the US president’s visit.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who heads the Israeli negotiations, on Sunday was quoted as saying that despite Israel’s commitment to hammering out an agreement with the PA, there are “red lines” which may not be crossed.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)