BICOM

Palestinian and Israeli envoys held a fourth round of exploratory talks in Amman yesterday, where Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat urged Israel to free dozens of Palestinian prisoners, according to a senior Palestinian official cited in a AFP report.

The official said the Palestinians used the meeting to demand the release of more than 23 imprisoned Palestinian officials, including Palestinian parliamentary speaker Aziz Dweik, a Hamas member who was arrested by Israeli forces last week. “Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat gave a letter to the head of the Israeli delegation Yitzhak Molcho calling on the Israeli government to immediately release Dweik and more than 23 other Palestinian lawmakers,” the official said to AFP. The other high-profile prisoner on the list included Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti and Ahmed Saadat, the secretary general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Both Baghouti and Saadat have been convicted of murder of Israelis in terror attacks.

The meeting on Saturday was the fourth time Erakat and Molcho have held talks on the resumption of direct negotiations under the auspices of the Quartet. However, the senior Palestinian official cited in the AFP report, said the meetings have failed to make any progress in setting conditions that would enable the Palestinians to continue negotiating after 26 January, the date on which the Palestinian Authority says it will walk away from the table if Israel does not impose another settlement freeze.

On 26 October the Quartet said it would seek comprehensive proposals on “territory and security” from both sides within three months. The Palestinians have warned that without an Israeli settlement freeze by 26 January they will not continue talks. Israel says it considers the three-month period to have started with the beginning of the talks on 3 January, putting the deadline at 3 April.

In a separate development during Sunday’s cabinet session, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked the Migron settlers to voluntarily evacuate the outpost and receive in return support to establish a community on nearby state land. The settlers, however, rejected the proposal and demanded that Netanyahu authorise the Migron outpost’s settlement by legislation, and threatened that a Migron evacuation would cost Netanyahu his position, because the national religious public would not tolerate a forcible evacuation of the largest settler outpost. This summer, the High Court of Justice ordered the state to demolish the outpost, which was built on Private Palestinian land, by the end of March. The outpost is home to 50 families.