Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said today he was likely to meet Palestinian President Yasser Arafat this weekend as Mr Peres's office confirmed he was drafting a new peace plan.
In the West Bank, Israel maintained its hold on Palestinian-ruled cities in defiance of repeated US calls for a full withdrawal from areas occupied after Palestinian militants killed an Israeli cabinet minister on October 17.
Mr Arafat and Mr Peres were to attend a conference on Middle East economies on the Spanish island of Majorca scheduled for November 2 and 3. Palestinian officials have said such a meeting was in the works.
"We shall probably meet, but we are not going to negotiate because I think that negotiations should be prepared very carefully otherwise it will create a disappointment instead of a hope," Mr Peres told reporters in Jerusalem.
The two architects of interim Israeli-Palestinian peace deals last met on September 26 in Gaza to reaffirm a US-backed truce-to-talks plan which has yet to take hold.
Mr Peres’ aide Yoram Dori, responding to an Israeli newspaper report, said the foreign minister was working on a peace initiative that was still in the initial planning stages.
The United States has urged the two sides to end more than a year of fighting and resume peace talks as it seeks to bolster Arab support for its anti-terror campaign, including military strikes on Afghanistan.