JERUSALEM (JTA) — A U.S. State Department official said there are no plans to announce a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks after the Israeli government denied that it agreed to base new talks on the 1967 lines.
“There are currently no plans for an announcement for the resumption of negotiations,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Thursday in Amman, on the last day of Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to the Middle East, his sixth in recent weeks in an effort to bring Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table.
On Thursday, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied a Reuters report citing an unnamed Israeli official saying that the Israeli government would agree to return to peace talks based on the 1967 lines.
The denial came as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met in Ramallah on Thursday with senior leaders of his Fatah party and the Palestine Liberation Organization to discuss proposals made during his two meetings this week in Amman with Kerry.
The Arab League on Wednesday endorsed Kerry’s proposals for restarting peace talks.
It had been believed that Kerry would announce during this trip a breakthrough in his efforts to restart the long-stalled peace talks.
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