Palestinian negotiation team described Tuesday its talks with Israel as "difficult and complicated".
Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior member of the team told reporters that "I believe our talks are difficult and complicated" though "the second session of talks that was held on Monday evening with the Israeli side in Jerusalem was the beginning of our peace talks."
He added that Israeli and Palestinian negotiation crews talked about "a package of issues that will be discussed in international peace conference" slated for November in the United States.
A Palestinian source closed to the talks said there are two different views for each part related to the participation in the upcoming November summit conference.
The source, who spoke in condition of anonymity, revealed to Xinhua by Telephone that the Palestinian side wants to agree on a document that includes clear outlines for the six final status issues.
Jerusalem, the Palestinian refugees' right of return, Jewish settlements, water, security and the borders of the future Palestinian state are the final status issues that Israeli and Palestinian negotiators argue about.
"We don't want just a reference to the six final status issues in the document, and we don't want the summit to make a festive declaration on achieving peace. We want a real Israeli commitment to end the conflict," stressed Abed Rabbo.
However, the Palestinian demands have met strong voices of resistance from the Israeli side.
Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman has described the U.S.-sponsored Middle East peace conference in November as "a mistake without any noticeable result", local daily Jerusalem Post reported Tuesday.
During a meeting with visiting U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice late Monday at Jerusalem's David Citadel Hotel, Lieberman said "in the current political conditions, the government cannot allow itself to make controversial decisions on sensitive issues."
"The conference planned for Annapolis is a mistake ... Without a noticeable improvement in Israeli security or Palestinian economic conditions, the conference will not be different than any of the unsuccessful conferences of the past," Lieberman was quoted as telling Rice.
The dividing of Jerusalem, one of the most disputed core issues within the frame of Israel-Palestine peace process, had raised heated discussion among members of the Israeli cabinet.
Lieberman emphasized his Israel Beiteinu party's decision last week to view dividing the holy basin of Jerusalem as a red line for the party's remaining in the coalition.
"There is no point in raising complex and sensitive issues until the Palestinian economic situation is taken care of," Lieberman told Rice.
Shas leader Eli Yishai also warned Rice on Sunday that dividingJ erusalem would lead to the government's downfall.
However, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat has denied reports saying that Ahmed Qurei, the head of the Palestinian team, had decided to resign due to the lack of seriousness at the Israeli side.
"Such reports are totally untrue, because the negotiations with Israel, on the final status issues, have not begun yet," Erekat told reporters in Ramallah.
It was surprised for the press that a senior politician from the radical Hamas movement, which has opposed the talks between the Palestinians and Israel, expressed readiness to hold peace negotiations with Israel.
Ghazi Hammad, a former spokesman of the deposed Prime Minister Ismail Haneya of Hamas, told reporters in Gaza Tuesday that his movement doesn't oppose peace negotiations with Israel "because the principle of negotiating the enemy is neither legally nor religiously rejected."
However, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Brrhoum denied in a statement sent to the press Hammad's statements that the movement wants to hold peace talks with Israel.
"As long as the occupation of the Palestinian territories exists, there are no chances to hold talks with the enemy," said Barhoum, stressing that "no peace talks with the occupation forces that kill and arrest our people and storm their towns."
U.S President George W. Bush called for the November conference in a bid to bolster Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas whose forces lost the Gaza Strip for rival Hamas movement, but remained dominant in the West Bank.
After the Gaza takeover in June, Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert have met almost regularly, hoping to reach a framework agreement for an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank before November.
The two leaders have also formed negotiation crews to translate their decisions into written documents.
In other to push forward the negotiations to pave the way for the success of the Mideast peace conference, Rice is currently on a Mideast regional tour that has taken her already to Israel and Palestine, where she met respectively with Olmert and Abbas to probed preparations for the November conference.
Source: Xinhua
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