Israel, Palestinians to start US-arranged talks

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will meet on Sunday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas under a US-brokered deal but Israel made clear the focus would not be on steps toward a Palestinian state as Mr Abbas hoped.

The fate of captured Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit, seized by Gaza militants 10 months ago, is expected to dominate the talks after Israel rebuffed a list of about 1,400 Palestinian prisoners that Hamas wants released as part of a swap.

Israeli officials said they objected because the list was stacked with militants deemed to have "blood on their hands" from deadly attacks against Israelis.

But Mr Olmert stopped short of rejecting the list outright and the government said it wanted to continue negotiations through Egyptian mediators. Hamas also signalled a willingness to continue negotiations but said they would be "doomed to fail" if Israel insisted that some militants be excluded.

Sunday's talks will be the first between Mr Olmert and Mr Abbas since they agreed during a visit to the region last month by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to meet once every two weeks.

At the meeting, Mr Abbas hopes to begin talks about the outlines of a future Palestinian state. But Olmert's office said the discussions would focus on humanitarian and security issues.

Mr Olmert has said Abbas's power-sharing partnership with Hamas Islamists and Shalit's captivity meant no real progress towards Palestinian statehood could be made in their meetings.

The Palestinians proposed holding the talks in the West Bank city of Jericho but it was unclear if Israel would agree. They last met in Jerusalem on March 11.

"It is patently clear that these will be tough and complicated negotiations," Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz said of the prisoner list submitted by Hamas.