Kerry Meets Fayyad, Peres on Fresh Mideast Trip

Top US diplomat John Kerry was in the Occupied Territories on Monday for talks with Palestinian Prime minister Salam Fayyad and Zionist President Shimon Peres on his second trip to the region in two weeks.

Kerry, who is US President Barack Obama’s new point man on the Middle East, is back on a fresh mission to coax the Zionist entity and the Palestinians back to negotiations which have been at an impasse since September 2010.

Upon his arrival on Sunday, he headed straight to Ramallah where he held 90 minutes of talks with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in what a top State Department official said was “a constructive meeting.”

On Monday morning, he joined top Zionist officials at a ceremony marking the so-called Holocaust Memorial Day and was expected to hold talks with Fayyad at the US consulate in west Jerusalem later in the afternoon, officials said.

Immediately afterwards, he was to meet Peres at his Jerusalem residence before having dinner with Zionist PM Benjamin Netanyahu.

Kerry and Netanyahu are scheduled to hold a working meeting on Tuesday morning before the US diplomat’s departure for London.

During Kerry’s talks with Abbas, their third such meeting in little over a month, they first focused on economic development in a 20-minute meeting with several top Palestinian and US officials.

They then held a private hour-long session at which they “agreed to continue working together to determine the best path forward,” with Kerry insisting the specifics be kept under wraps “in order to keep moving forward in a positive direction.”

Abbas said the release of prisoners held by the entity of occupation was a “top priority” for resuming peace talks, his spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina quoted him as saying.

The Palestinian leader has repeatedly made clear there would be no return to negotiations without a settlement freeze, but he has also made it known he would suspend for two months all efforts to seek international recognition of a Palestinian state to give US-brokered efforts a chance.

Abbas also wants Netanyahu to present a map of the borders of a future Palestinian state before talks can resume.