JERUSALEM (AFP) — Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned on Monday that Israel and the Palestinians may not reach a peace deal within US President George W. Bush's target of a year as both sides began discussing the conflict's core issues.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and former Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qorei, the top negotiators, met in Jerusalem for the first time since Bush's landmark peace mission last week.
"The meeting lasted two hours in a good and constructive atmosphere," the foreign ministry spokesman told AFP afterward. "They discussed the core issues... (and) agreed to continue these talks on an intensive basis."
But even as the two sides discussed the most intractable issues of their conflict for the first time since reviving their negotiations in late November after seven-year freeze, Olmert warned they may not reach a deal.
"I'm not sure we can reach an agreement and I'm not sure we can reach its implementation," a senior government official quoted Olmert as telling parliament's foreign affairs and defence committee.
"But I will be committing a sin to my duty if I didn't try," he said. "The opposition and the head of the opposition want to maintain the status quo at any price. I say this is dangerous, adventurous and irresponsible."
Olmert has faced internal criticism over the talks, with two members of his coalition threatening to quit if core issues are discussed and opinion polls showing that right-wing opposition parties would win a new general election.
Meanwhile Livni said that details of the talks were unlikely to be divulged.
"Past experience has shown that when talks are held in the limelight they lead to the radicalisation of the positions and to the distortion of the things said behind closed doors; to a rise in expectation and to disappointment that eventually leads to violence," her office quoted her as saying.
During his first presidential visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories last week, Bush predicted the two sides would sign a peace treaty to end their decades-old conflict before he left office in January 2009.
Aiming to score a foreign policy triumph before Bush leaves office, his administration has turned its attention to the festering Middle East conflict over the past year, especially after Islamist movement Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip seven months ago.
Bush said he was determined to push the two sides into sealing a deal that has eluded numerous previous US administrations, although US officials have warned that any agreement and its implementation could be far apart.
The two sides remain as far apart as ever on the most sensitive questions dogging the conflict -- Jerusalem, refugees, settlements.
On settlements, for example, the Palestinians are demanding a complete halt to all activity in the occupied West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem, which they want to make the capital of their future state.
Olmert has said that "Jerusalem as far as we are concerned is not in the same status" as settlements in the West Bank.
The Palestinian leadership is demanding Israel stop its operations against militants in the territories, saying they undermine its authority and efforts to improve law and order; Israel insists they are necessary to prevent attacks.
Underlining the divide, Olmert said on Monday that Israel would continue to act as it sees fit.
"Israel is maintaining its complete freedom of action in its war against terror both in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and in Gaza and rejects any Palestinian criticism on this issue," he told the committee on Monday.
He also said that "any act of terror that is successfully carried out can lead to the destruction of the process we are building with the Palestinians."
But he warned against launching an expanded ground operation in Gaza at this time: "I highly recommend not to get bogged down in operations and price tags that are completely out of proportion to the threats we are facing."
The issue of Gaza also looms large over the negotiations, with the smaller half of a future Palestinian state out of moderate president Mahmud Abbas's control since the bloody takeover by Hamas in June 2007.
Both the United States and Israel have said a peace deal will not be implemented on the ground until Abbas regains control over the territory.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri predicted on Monday that the renewed talks would fail and said the Islamists consider them as "a cover for the enemy to continue its crimes against our people."
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