Mideast talks to begin amid settlement uproar

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JERUSALEM, Dec 10 (AFP): Israelis and Palestinians sit down this week for the first time since formally reviving their peace talks, but disagreements over an east Jerusalem settlement already threaten to undermine the process.
On Wednesday a steering committee made up of Israeli and Palestinian negotiators will meet for the first time since negotiations were officially restarted at a US conference in November after a seven-year freeze.
"There will be a meeting between the two delegations in Jerusalem to discuss the final status issues," senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told the news agency.
"But Israel must first and foremost declare an end to settlement activity in the West Bank and on top of that in Jerusalem," he added.
A week prior to the meeting Israel invited bids for more than 300 new housing units in the Har Homa settlement in east Jerusalem, setting off a storm of protest from the Palestinians and attracting criticism from Washington.
At Wednesday's meeting, the steering committee will appoint up to nine subcommittees, each of them to focus on the most intractable issues of the decades-long Middle East conflict, top Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qorei said.
Israeli negotiators have not released any details about the upcoming talks, saying they are still involved in internal deliberations. "There will be a lot of challenges, it won't be an easy process. It will be complex because there are complex issues on the table but we want this process to succeed," Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev told the news agency.
When asked whether the proposed expansion of a Jewish settlement in the Har Homa neighbourhood in east Jerusalem would create difficulties, Regev replied, "I hope not".
When they re-launched the negotiations at the US conference last month, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas pledged to aim for a comprehensive agreement by the end of 2008.