Abbas aide: Path to Mideast talks still blocked

JERUSALEM (AP) ? A senior Palestinian official says the path to formal negotiations with Israel is still blocked, despite a U.S. suggestion that the sides are close to returning to the table.

Nabil Abu Rdeneh said in a statement late Sunday that 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.

Abu Rdeneh says 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.

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

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-07-22-ML-Israel-Palestinians/id-b5a177129e8c4d6f85a1783f17892a49

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