By NNN-KUNA
Ramallah : Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat has said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert have agreed on the setting up of a working team for final status negotiations.
The agreement was reached between both leaders during a meeting in Western Jerusalem on Monday.
Following the meeting, Erekat told a news conference that both leaders had approved the two-state solution, and vowed to exert more efforts to hold a successful international conference on the Middle East, called by US President George W. Bush in July.
Erekat hailed the move as a very significant development, but he said, “It is still early to talk about more details.”
He also declined to comment on the nature or level of this working team, but he made it certain that relevant negotiations would be held under Abbas and Olmert’s joint supervision.
Abbas and Olmert had a closed-door meeting, followed by another meeting attended by both sides’ delegations, he added.
During the second meeting, they mulled over security and economic issues and Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad having elaborated his government’s security plans.
Erekat added that the Israeli side had agreed to free a new group of Palestinian prisoners from the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the first week of Ramadan.
However, the Palestinian official failed to reveal the number of Palestinian prisoners whom Israel intended to release during Ramadan.
The Palestinian and Israeli sides also vowed to put an end to the issue of some 54,000 Palestinians staying in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with invalid residency permits, Erekat said.
On the Gaza Strip, Israel vowed to respect the humanitarian conditions of Palestinians there, and to allow pilgrims to travel to Saudi Arabia via Egypt, he said.