BICOM

The US State Department made a rare comment yesterday on the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, confirming that the talks are ongoing and that US special envoy Martin Indyk has participated in the meetings.

A statement from State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said, “Israeli and Palestinian delegations have been meeting continuously since final status negotiations resumed on July 29.” She added, “The negotiations have been serious, and US Special Envoy Martin Indyk and his team have been fully briefed on the bilateral talks and also participated in a bilateral negotiating session.” However, Psaki also confirmed that “we are not planning to read out the details of these meetings” with a strict media blackout in place to guard against potential leaks and speculation which could hamper the negotiations.

Although details have been kept under wraps, it is thought that several rounds of talks have taken place during the last month between Israel’s Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s envoy Yitzhak Molcho and senior Palestinian negotiators Saeb Erekat and Mohammed Shtayyeh. Israel Radio news reported yesterday that Livni and Erekat met on Saturday evening in Jerusalem, although there was no official confirmation of such talks. The same report speculates that they will meet again tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah yesterday said that a second group of Palestinian prisoners could be released by Israel during September. According to the Palestinian Maan news agency, Hamdallah commented, “It is possible that the second batch of pre-Oslo prisoners will be released before the end of this month.” Following a decision by Israel’s cabinet, Israel released twenty-six Palestinian prisoners in August in order to pave the way for peace talks to begin. The cabinet approved the release in stages of 104 prisoners in total, mostly convicted over twenty years ago and all of whom were involved in deadly attacks on Israelis.