Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat announced on Monday that President Mahmoud Abbas and U. S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will meet in Ramallah on Thursday.
Erekat told reporters in Ramallah that Abbas and Rice would discuss "the agenda of the fall peace conference" that U.S. President George W. Bush had proposed in a bid to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"They will discuss the substance of the agenda," Erekat said. " Our position is clear: it is based on President Bush' vision of the two-state solution, and also on the roadmap and the mechanism of implementing the Arab peace initiative."
"There are other issues that will be discussed with Rice, such as settlements, the ongoing Israeli attacks and offensives and also how to release a meaningful peace process which leads to end the occupation," said Erekat.
He disclosed that the situation in the Gaza Strip, which had been taken over by Hamas movement in mid June "would be tackled in the meeting between Abbas and Rice."
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Erekat had earlier announced that joint Israeli and Palestinian working teams began to prepare for a declaration of principles ahead of the international peace conference.
The Arab Peace Initiative, first approved in 2002 and reactivated during an Arab summit in Riyadh in March, offers to extend recognition to Israel by all Arab countries, provided that it withdraws from all Arab territories it occupied in the 1967 six- day war, including East Jerusalem.
Source: Xinhua
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