Kerry to travel to West Bank to meet with Palestinian leader

                      
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will travel to the West Bank to meet with Palestinian leaders on Friday, U.S. and Palestinian officials said, in a last-minute diplomatic flurry aimed at resuming peace talks with Israel.       

"Secretary Kerry will travel to Ramallah this afternoon to meet with President Abbas," a senior State Department official said in Amman, the Jordanian capital where Kerry is at present.              
"It seemed Kerry wanted to hear more from the (Palestinian) president," a senior Palestinian official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.            

Earlier, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry discussed his ideas with the chief Palestinian negotiator in Amman, after Palestinian leaders demanded further guarantees before restarting talks with Israel.                     

A stormy, high-level meeting of senior Palestinian leaders called to discuss U.S Kerry's latest peace proposal ended with a decision early Friday to demand that Israel agree on the general border of a future Palestinian state, officials said.                              

The demand casts a cloud of uncertainty over months of U.S. mediation efforts because Israel rejects preconditions.                        

Hoping to push Israelis and Palestinians toward talks, President Barack Obama asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to work with Kerry "to resume negotiations with Palestinians as soon as possible," according to a statement released by the White House late Thursday.                              

The Palestinians demand is that the starting point for border talks must be the cease-fire line that held from 1949 until the 1967 war, when Israel captured the West Bank. Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.                        

Palestinians claim those territories for their future state, with modifications reached through agreed land swaps that could allow major Jewish settlement blocs built in the West Bank becoming part of Israel proper, in exchange for territories in Israel.                             

Previous Israeli governments twice negotiated on the basis of the 1967 lines, but no peace accord was reached.                                    


REUTERS