Palestine, Israel make no progress in meetings

RAMALLAH - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stressed Thursday that the Jordan-hosted Israeli-Palestinian meetings should create a common ground in order to restart peace negotiations.

"The meetings in Jordan have not yielded any results so far," Abbas said during a meeting of the Fatah Advisory Council in Ramallah.

He said that there will be another meeting between Palestinian and Israeli negotiators in Amman on January 25, stressing that these meetings cannot be considered as peace negotiations.

Abbas also noted that he told U.S State Secretary Hillary Clinton, during a phone call on Monday, that the Israeli side did not present any new solutions.

The Palestinian president added that a committee, composed of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Fatah movement, will decide the future options if the Jordan meetings fail to bring the two sides back to the negotiation table.

Palestinian and Israeli negotiators held two rounds of meetings earlier this month in the Jordanian capital Amman to discuss the possibility of resuming the peace negotiations which stopped in October 2010, four weeks after they started.

The meetings were held under the auspices of Jordan and the international Quartet for peace which groups the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia.

Palestinians and Israelis are required to resume peace negotiations before the end of a deadline set by the Quartet ends on January 26.