WASHINGTON: The Obama administration on Friday begins a flurry of high-level talks aimed at reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, after its Middle East diplomatic debut fell flat last year. Accompanied by Middle East envoy George Mitchell, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet in Washington with Foreign Ministers Nasser Judeh of Jordan and Ahmed Aboul Gheit of Egypt, the main Arab peace brokers, officials said. Mitchell will then leave late Sunday for Paris and Brussels for consultations with allies, including a meeting of the quartet of the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia, they added. The meeting of the Middle East quartet - which launched a roadmap for peace in 2003 calling for the creation of a Palestinian state living alongside a secure Israel - will take place in Brussels. Mitchell will then return to the United States before heading to the Middle East by the end of the month, State Department spokesman PJ Crowley told reporters in announcing the flurry of talks. Days after entering the White House in January last year, President Barack Obama signaled that Arab-Israeli peace was a top priority, but Crowley acknowledged that efforts hit a "rough patch late last year. The Obama administration faced a barrage of Arab accusations that it failed to follow through on its demand that hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government completely freeze Jewish settlement construction. Crowley said the administration wanted to "share ideas about how to get talks started. "Clearly the first step in this process is to get the two sides back to formal negotiations and also find a variety of ways to address the very concrete issues concerning both sides, he said. The core issues are borders of a future Palestinian state, the fate of Palestinian refugees, and the status of the holy city of Jerusalem, the eastern portion of which the Palestinians want to turn into their capital. The United States is pushing for borders along the boundary lines where the 1967 war ended, but allowing for land swaps. In an interview with US television PBS on Wednesday, Mitchell said: "We think that the negotiation should last no more than two years. Once begun we think it can be done within that period of time. "We hope the parties agree. Personally I think it can be done in a shorter period of time, he said, according to a transcript of the interview. On Monday, Israel's Maariv newspaper said Washington was pushing a plan to restart peace talks that foresees reaching a final deal in two years and agreeing on permanent borders in nine months. Under the plan, the Israelis and Palestinians will immediately start final status talks that were suspended during the Gaza war a year ago, Maariv reported, citing unnamed sources. After meeting in recent days with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the US-backed Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said that he was open to negotiations with Israel, but talks could only resume when Jewish settlement activity ends. Under the US plan, the two sides will first discuss the issue of permanent borders, with a deadline of nine months for reaching an agreement, Maariv said. The idea is to have an agreement on borders before the expiry of an Israeli moratorium on new settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, so Israel will start to build again only in those settlements that will be inside its borders under the final status agreement, it said. Underlying the discussions will be the principle of a land swap that has figured prominently in past peace negotiations - Israel will keep its major settlement blocks in the occupied West Bank and the Palestinians will get land inside Israel in return. Asked if the two sides were any closer to resuming negotiations, Crowley said: "I think there is still work to be done.
