MIDDLE EAST: Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert will hold talks with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas after Palestinian militants release an Israeli soldier they are holding captive, vice-premier Shimon Peres announced yesterday.
UN secretary general Kofi Annan, meanwhile, said yesterday during a visit to Cairo that he was hoping for "positive" news on a lifting of Israel's sea and air blockade of Lebanon within 48 hours.
"Abu Mazen should be invited to talks, and I believe the prime minister will do so in the coming days," Mr Peres told army radio. "Negotiations must be launched on the 'road map'," he added, referring to the long-moribund peace blueprint that is backed by the US and leading European states.
The veteran Israeli statesman said "the moment" that Cpl Gilad Shalit, who was abducted by Palestinian militants from a base inside Israel in late June, is released, Mr Olmert would meet for talks with Mr Abbas. His comments came a day after Mr Olmert told a parliamentary committee that his plan for a unilateral withdrawal in the West Bank was no longer on the agenda and shortly after a report in the daily Yedioth Ahronoth that the Labour Party leader and defence minister Amir Peretz was calling for renewed talks with the Palestinians.
The month-long conflict with Hizbullah in Lebanon, from where Israel withdrew its forces unilaterally in May 2000, has doused the Israeli public's enthusiasm for any further unilateral moves and Mr Olmert has been forced to put his plan for a West Bank pull-out on ice. In the absence of any clear diplomatic initiative, Mr Peretz has reportedly been telling his associates that the government must return to the negotiating table with the Palestinians and even explore the option of talks with Syria.
Ever since Hamas won parliamentary elections, ousting Mr Abbas's moderate Fatah party, and formed a government earlier this year, Israel has been boycotting the Palestinian Authority.
In recent days there have been reports in several Arab newspapers that a deal over the release of Cpl Shalit is on the verge of being sealed and includes the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails.
But Israeli leaders have played down the reports. "Everything that has been published so far is in the realm of speculation," Mr Peres said yesterday. "No deal has been sealed." Hamas representatives in Gaza said yesterday there was "no movement" on a possible deal that would lead to the soldier's release.
Speaking to reporters after meeting with Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in Cairo, Mr Annan said he hoped "within the next 48 hours, we will have some constructive and positive news" about a lifting of Israel's blockade of Lebanon, which has been in place since Israel launched its offensive against Hizbullah on July 13th.