A senior Palestinian official said today the path to formal peace negotiations with Israel was still blocked, despite a US suggestion that the sides were close to returning to the table.

Nabil Abu Rdeneh said Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas agreed to send a delegate to Washington to continue lower-level preliminary talks with an Israeli counterpart about the terms for negotiations.

But Mr Abu Rdeneh said that for actual peace talks to resume, Israel must first accept its pre-1967 war frontier as a baseline and halt settlement building, demands Israel's leader has rejected in the past. The Palestinians seek a state in the lands Israel captured in 1967.

Mr Abu Rdeneh says the Washington talks are meant to "overcome the obstacles that still stand in the way of launching negotiations".

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