Palestinians' indirect talks with Israel with the U.S. mediation will start after the Arab Peace Initiative Committee and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) approve their holding, the Palestine daily newspaper Al-Ayyam reported on Sunday.
If approved, the talks could last four months, the paper said, referring to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
Top diplomats of Arab states spoke on Saturday evening in support of resuming indirect Israeli-Palestinian talks under the mediation of the United States, the secretary general of the Arab League said.
Amr Moussa said that the foreign ministers of the Arab Peace Initiative member states made the decision at the Arab League's session in Egypt's Cairo.
Prime Minister of Qatar Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jabr Al-Thani said that the Arab states are giving the chance of resuming the talks not to Israelis, but to the United States, which implies enormous efforts mediating the settlement of the issue.
"This is another chance that we are giving the U.S. mediator, but not Israel," he said.
U.S. mediator George Mitchell spent three days last week in the region in a bid to restart the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue, which stalled more than a year ago.
Israel repeatedly called on the Palestinian National Authority to resume peace talks immediately and without any preconditions.
Palestinians, however, cite ongoing Israeli settlement construction in the occupied territories as a main obstacle to the peace process.
Under the internationally agreed roadmap for Middle East peace, Israel is obliged to freeze all settlement construction activity and remove unauthorized outposts built since 2001 from Palestinian territories.
GAZA STRIP, May 2 (RIA Novosti)
