The head of the Palestinian legislative council, Ahmed Qorei, and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres have reached an agreement to set up a restart to peace negotiations, a Palestinian source said Wednesday.
The document, of which AFP obtained a copy in Arabic, handles four points, including Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state, and is similar to that published on December 23 by the Israeli daily, Yediot Aharonot.
The Palestininian leadership decided on Tuesday to maintain its high-level contacts with Israel, despite its decision to stop Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat from attending midnight mass in Bethlehem in the West Bank, and Israel confirmed that the contacts between Qorei and Peres had the agreement of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Peres was on a trip to the Ukraine Wednesday and reacted favourably to a suggestion from Kiev to host Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in Yalta, where the victorious allies from the second wolrd war divided up the globe in 1945.
(China Daily December 27, 2001)
