The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Jerusalem

Israelis and Palestinians opened talks on Monday on the most intractable issues of their conflict, with major obstacles still blocking a deal that US President George W. Bush hopes will be sealed within a year.

Top negotiators Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and former Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qorei were meeting in Jerusalem for the first time since Bush's landmark peace mission last week.

"Today the talks will begin on the core issues," a senior aide to Livni told AFP.

"Livni is authorised to discuss all the issues, and the issues where they fail to reach understanding will be referred to (Israeli Prime Minister Ehud) Olmert and Abu Mazen," he said, referring to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

Livni said details of the negotiations were unlikely to be divulged. "Past experience has shown that when talks are held in the limelight they lead to the radicalisation of the positions and to the distortion of the things said behind closed doors; to a rise in expectation and to disappointment that eventually leads to violence," her office quoted Livni as telling a ministerial meeting on Monday.

During his first presidential visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories last week, Bush predicted the two sides would sign a peace treaty to end their decades-old conflict before he left office in January 2009.

"I believe it's going to happen, that there's going to be a signed peace treaty by the time I leave office," he said, just six weeks after the two sides formally relaunched the peace process after a seven-year freeze.