Kerry presses formula for resuming Mideast talks

RAMALLAH: US Secretary of State John Kerry stepped up his drive to get Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table, meeting with the Palestinian president Friday as he sought to close a deep divide between the two sides over a formula for resuming peace talks after nearly five years.
The talks came a day after the Palestinian leadership balked at dropping a main condition for talks with the Israelis. They demand a guarantee that negotiations on borders between a Palestinian state and Israel would be based on the cease-fire line that held from 1949 until the 1967 war, when Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.
Kerry held more than 90 minutes of talks Friday morning with chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat in the Jordanian capital, Amman. Kerry also spoke by phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and officials from both sides, a US official said.
Kerry then went by helicopter to the West Bank town of Ramallah and met for around an hour with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. He then headed back to Amman.
“Mr. President, you should look happy,” a cheerful-looking Kerry said to Abbas in front of reporters as they sat before the closed-door talks began.
After their late-night meeting, the Palestinians did not bring up their often-repeated demand that Israel stop building in Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem before talks could resume. One official said that if Israel accepts the 1967 lines as a basis, that would make most of the settlements illegitimate.