JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli and Palestinian peace negotiators will hold a face-to-face meeting for the first time in more than a year.
The meeting, scheduled for Tuesday in Amman, Jordan, will be held under the auspices of the Mideast Quartet. The sides last met in person in September 2010.
The Prime Minister’s Office in Israel issued a statement late Sunday saying that attorney Yitzhak Molcho, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s personal envoy to the negotiations with the Palestinians, will leave for the Jordanian capital on Tuesday in order to attend a meeting of the Quartet.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat reportedly told journalists Monday that there will be no progress in the talks unless Israel agrees to halt construction in settlements in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, and agree to the 1967 lines as the border of a Palestinian state. Israel has called for negotiations to resume without preconditions.
The Quartet has set a Jan. 26 deadline for the resumption of direct negotiations.
Leaders of Hamas in Gaza called on the Palestinian Authority to cancel the meeting, Reuters reported.
