The Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak meet today in a bid to revive peace talks with the Palestinians ahead of a possible three-way meeting later this month. Mr Netanyahu's visit, his second since May, will coincide with the arrival of US Middle East envoy George Mitchell in the region as Washington continues its push to get the peace process back on track.
Israel's expansion of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian West Bank, which defies US pressure and Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas's condition for resuming talks, is likely to top the agenda in Cairo. The two leaders are also expected to discuss the exchange of an Israeli soldier held by the Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
The United States has sought to fast-track a peace process that would lead to the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. It has floated the possibility of hosting a meeting between Mr Netanyahu and Mr Abbas on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, according to the Israeli president Shimon Peres. But both sides have rebuffed the US call for goodwill gestures that would see a freeze to settlement construction in return for Arab states beginning to normalise ties with Israel.
Arab countries have said normalisation will only come after substantive peace talks, or a settlement to the conflict, and Mr Abbas insists that he will not meet Mr Netanyahu before a complete end to settlement construction. Earlier this month, Mr Netanyahu authorised the construction of 455 new homes in West Bank settlements, prompting Mr Abbas to say that there was no point in attending a summit with him.
Washington criticised the settlement expansion as "inconsistent" with the peace process, but has also said it does not consider a settlement freeze a condition for peace talks to resume. Israel has said it would weigh demands for a freeze in settlement construction in the West Bank. However, it stresses that this would be time-limited, would not include the newly authorised construction, nor the 2,500 homes currently being built, and would also exclude occupied east Jerusalem.
Israeli media reported last week that Mr Netanyahu said he believed he would reach a deal on settlements with the United States when Mr Mitchell arrived. If a deal is secured, it would place pressure on Mr Abbas to retreat from his calls for an immediate freeze of all settlement construction before resuming negotiations. Egypt has been mediating between rival Palestinian factions Fatah in the West Bank, and Hamas, which rules the besieged Gaza Strip which the Israeli military attacked at the turn of the year.
It has been Israel's main Arab interlocutor since the two signed a peace treaty in 1979, but the neighbours remain at odds over the peace process. Cairo has also acted as a mediator in talks between Hamas and Israel on a possible deal to end the crippling Gaza blockade and free Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier captured by Palestinian militants more than three years ago. Efforts to reach a deal have reportedly intensified in the past month, but a senior Hamas official in Damascus, where the group's leadership is exiled, on Saturday downplayed reports of an imminent agreement.
* AFP