US, EU diplomats strive to save ME peace talks

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RAMALLAH, Sept 30 (AFP): US envoy George Mitchell was holding crucial talks with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas Thursday in an effort to keep peace negotiations with Israel from collapsing.
Mitchell hopes to persuade Abbas to persist with negotiations despite Israel's refusal, so far, to extend restrictions on Jewish settlement building in the occupied West Bank.
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton was due to fly in later in the day to add her voice to efforts to keep Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on track.
An EU official in Jerusalem said Ashton would meet Abbas at around 8:30 pm (1830 GMT).
Ashton is to meet Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad Friday morning then have talks with Netanyahu and Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak, the official added.
The diplomats are seeking to stave off a breakdown of negotiations, which only restarted this month. The issue is Israel's refusal to extend a 10-month moratorium on settlement building, as demanded by the Palestinians and urged by the European Union and the United States.
The moratorium ran out Sunday but the Palestinians have said they will take no final decision or whether or not to quit the talks until after Abbas has conferred with Arab foreign ministers.
The Palestinian leader had been due to meet the ministers in Cairo next Monday but the Arab League announced Thursday that the meeting has been put off for two days to give more time for US-led efforts to save the peace talks.
"It has been decided that the meeting of the Arab League peace committee will take place on October 6," Ahmed Eissa, spokesman for Arab League chief Amr Mussa, told the news agency.
The postponement was intended to "allow Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas to attend the meeting, in light of the latest developments and efforts by the United States for peace talks," Eissa said.
Netanyahu's ruling coalition depends heavily on nationalist hardliners close to the settler movement. It has baulked at renewing the partial freeze while urging Abbas to stick with the talks, which were relaunched on September 2 after a 20-month hiatus.
Following a meeting with the US envoy Wednesday, Netanyahu's office quoted Mitchell as saying he had come to bring a message of reassurance about Washington's commitment to reaching a comprehensive peace in the region, despite the numerous "potholes" along the way.
Israel's Maariv daily reported that in return for a 60-day extension of the settlement freeze, President Barack Obama was offering Netanyahu a guarantee that he would supply Israel with advanced weapons and block any attempt to bring the issue of Palestinian statehood to the UN Security Council.
Israel's Y-net news website said senior Obama advisor Dennis Ross had told key senators that the president wanted "two months more of a freeze."
Palestinian media quoted an unidentified Palestinian official as saying the next 48 hours would be crucial in US efforts to persuade Israel to extend the moratorium and keep the negotiations afloat.
Ashton, under fire at home for failing to raise the EU's profile in the Middle East, announced Wednesday that she would make a previously unscheduled stopover in the region on her way back from a US trip.
"I have decided to travel directly from the United States to the Middle East as a matter of priority to urge both Israelis and Palestinians to find a satisfactory way for negotiations to continue and gather momentum," she said in a statement.
"As I have said, the EU regrets the Israeli decision not to extend the moratorium on settlements.