Top Israeli and Palestinian officials headed for the United States on Sunday where they are expected to seek ways to break a deadlock over settlements threatening to sabotage peace talks.
Israeli President Shimon Peres left on a four-day visit coinciding with the UN General Assembly meeting in New York, before Defence Minister Ehud Barak set off for talks in Washington.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas was also to fly later to New York for the annual sitting, with efforts under way to arrange a meeting with US President Barack Obama, a senior Palestinian official told AFP.
Shimon Peres
"There are also preparations for a meeting between (Israeli premier Benjamin) Netanyahu, Obama and Abbas," he said. "There is an expectation that they will meet."
Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said the Palestinian leader had high-level engagements scheduled, but he would not give details.
"Abbas will take part in the UN General Assembly meetings in New York and meet with several world leaders," Abu Rudeina told AFP.
"He will deliver an important speech about the peace process and efforts to push it forward in a way that would help end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land in 1967 as well as create an independent Palestinian state, with east Jerusalem as its capital."
Netanyahu's office said he had no plans to fly to the United States this week, and would not say whether he would meet Abbas before the settlement freeze expires later this month.
Israel and the Palestinians began long-awaited peace negotiations earlier this month, but the talks may well collapse if they fail to resolve a bitter dispute over the moratorium expiry.
So far, Israel has stubbornly refused to extend the partial 10-month ban on new construction. The Palestinians have vowed to pull out of the talks if building resumes.
Addressing ministers, Netanyahu reiterated Israel's position: that the moratorium will end as planned.
"Last week, I held political talks in (the Red Sea resort of) Sharm el-Sheikh and Jerusalem. I can't give any detail about the content of the talks because of its sensitivity. What I can say is that regarding the freeze, there has been no change in our position," he said.
The talks, which brought together Abbas, Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, failed to break the impasse.
Clinton said she hoped the Israeli leader would extend the freeze.
"Well, that certainly is our hope," she told ABC News.
"It's been in effect for the time that it was set for, and the talks are just starting," she said. "So we are working hard to make sure there remains a conducive atmosphere to constructive thought."
But Israel's ultra-nationalist Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said it was up to Netanyahu to withstand pressure over the moratorium.
"If we aren't able to withstand pressure on a relatively simple issue like building in (the West Bank), how will we defend our other national interests?"
Lieberman said on army radio.
"We said it would be a 10-month freeze and we told everyone. The minute it's over, we can start (building) again," he added.
The deadline for the end of the freeze is widely accepted as September 26, 10 months and a day after the original cabinet decision. But the military order regarding the moratorium states it will only close at midnight on September 30.
Efforts to reach a last-minute compromise now look set to shift to the United States.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, an Israeli official told AFP the main negotiators would meet there this week in order to set up the next leaders' meeting.
"The negotiators will be meeting this week in North America where they will be planning the next round of talks at a leadership level," he said, without giving further details.
Elsewhere, Barak, who reportedly backs an extension of the freeze, was set to meet with Clinton and with US Defence Secretary Robert Gates during his five-day trip.
And Peres was expected on Monday to address the UN's millennium summit in a speech explaining why Netanyahu could not extend the settlement freeze, the Jerusalem Post reported.
He was also expected to speak alongside Palestinian premier Salam Fayyad at a conference organised by former US president Bill Clinton, which Barak would also attend.
AFP/fa
