Positions clouded as Olmert-Abbas set for meeting
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli and Palestinian leaders will meet for another session of peace negotiations in Jerusalem on Tuesday but conflicting statements by both parties have clouded the state of progress in the talks.
Disputing comments by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the Palestinians say they have not agreed to put off talks on the future of Jerusalem until the end of the process, a senior adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Monday.
Officials in the West Bank also responded sharply to the latest assurance by an Israeli minister, aimed at right-wingers in Olmert's coalition, that the government had plans to press on with building Jewish settlements on Arab land around the city.
Olmert said on Sunday Abbas had consented to hold off discussing any possible division of Jerusalem until the end of the negotiating process, a move that could help the Israeli leader hold together his fragile coalition government for now.
"We will postpone dealing with Jerusalem to the last phase of the negotiations," he said, stressing that Abbas had "accepted" his suggestion.
Palestinian spokesmen have repeatedly said postponing talks on Jerusalem would be unacceptable.
"The issue of Jerusalem is a fundamental issue and cannot be postponed. The president did not agree to postpone it," said Nimer Hammad, Abbas's senior political adviser.
Later in the day, Israeli Housing Minister Zeev Boim told parliament there were initial plans to build up to 1,000 new housing units in a Jewish settlement which Israel calls Har Homa, between Jerusalem and the West Bank town of Bethlehem.
It appeared to be the latest effort to mollify a right-wing coalition party that has been threatening to bolt Olmert's government if he even discusses changing Jerusalem's current status. A spokesman for Boim said no construction was imminent.
Israel considers Arab East Jerusalem, which it captured in 1967 and later annexed along with adjacent areas of the West Bank in a move that was never recognized internationally, as part of its "indivisible and eternal capital".
Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be capital of the state they hope to establish in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
A 2003 U.S.-backed road map plan for peace laid out by President George W. Bush called on Israel to halt all settlement activity on occupied land and for Palestinians to rein in militants. Both sides reaffirmed those commitments when Bush visited the region last month as part of his efforts to push for a deal before he leaves office early next year.
NO SANTA CLAUS
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who leads Israel's negotiating team told parliament that she was not "giving presents" to the Palestinians during talks: "I am not Santa Claus or some uncle that is giving out perks," she said.
Livni, who met her Palestinian counterpart Ahmed Qurei on Monday, added that some Israelis act "as though the negotiations are a kind of gift to the Palestinians or a present to the Americans". She added: "I don't accept that."
She said Israel would continue talking to West Bank Palestinians despite militant rocket fire into Israel from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, saying it would only help the Islamists, who seized the enclave from Abbas's Fatah in June.
Abbas and Olmert promised Bush they would meet frequently to help advance Palestinian statehood negotiations that resumed after a U.S.-hosted Middle East peace conference in November.
The two sides have agreed to address core issues such as borders and the future of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees.
In his speech on Sunday, Olmert said the goal of peace talks with Abbas was to reach an understanding on "basic principles" for a Palestinian state by the end of 2008, rather than the full-fledged agreement that Palestinians have been seeking.
(Additional reporting by Adam Entous and Ori Lewis in Jerusalem, writing by Ori Lewis; Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Mary Gabriel)
