Olmert, Abbas meet in Jerusalem

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas are meeting on Wednesday to iron out differences in order to formulate a joint declaration ahead of an international peace conference scheduled tentatively for November.
    
The negotiating teams of the two leaders are for the first time participating in the talks.
    
The two leaders are holding a private meeting and will then brief the negotiating teams on the aims of the joint declaration.
    
A joint declaration will summarise the agreements reached between the two leaders over the past six meetings and will include 'core issues' like Jerusalem, permanent borders, the right of return and security issues, officials said.
    
Israel sees it as a 'joint declaration of principles' and Palestinians looking for an 'agreement of principles' which will mark a clear progress on core issues of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
    
The meeting marks the start of the official negotiating process, which to date has been held behind closed doors between Olmert and Abbas.
     
Olmert now seems to be in favour of rejecting both the titles and is instead proposing a general "declaration of interests", daily Ha'aretz reported on Wednesday.
    
The Prime Minister's Office wants to word the document vaguely enough so as not to lead to a political meltdown in Israel owing to objections from coalition partners as well as some ministers in the ruling Kadima party, the daily said.
    
Palestinian officials however said that the conference would end up into another 'photo opportunity' if an agreement is not reached beforehand on the way to solve the core issues.