Middle East peace talks set to resume

Islam Times: Middle East peace talks resume this week under the guidance of Hillary Clinton, amid growing tensions between all the parties over Jewish settlements on the West Bank.

Clinton says this round of talks may be the last chance for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. The secretary of state and George Mitchell, the US special envoy to the region, will visit Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh for talks tomorrow with the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, the Gurdian reported.

They are scheduled to move to Jerusalem for a second day of talks on Wednesday, and it is likely that Barack Obama will resume negotiations with Abbas and Netanyahu in New York next week at the UN general assembly.

The Palestinians have warned that a renewal of Israeli construction would spell the end of the talks, which resumed recently after a 20-month hiatus. But Netanyahu said yesterday that the current building restrictions, which are due to expire in two weeks, would not remain in place, although there will still be some limits on construction.

Netanyahu told the Tony Blair, the Middle East envoy for the quartet of the US, UN, EU and Russia, that a total freeze in construction "will not happen". Israel will not build "tens of thousands of housing units that are in the pipeline, but we will not freeze the lives of the residents", he said