By KUNA,
Ramallah : Israel denied Sunday rumors it was going to hold talks with the Palestinian side next month in Washington.
The rumors are “not true,” said Israel’s foreign ministry spokesman Ari Mickey, in a clear reaction to what Ahmad Qurei, head of the Palestinian negotiating team, had stated recently to the Palestinian newspaper Al-Ayyam that his team had received an invitation to visit the United States next month to meet with US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice to assess the course of negotiations between the Israeli and Palestinian sides.
Qurei told the newspaper that he had also received an invitation to join, on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York next September and again on the 15th of November, US officials to discuss how to further the peace process.
The head of the Palestinian negotiating team indicated yesterday that his contacts with Israeli prime minister Tzipi Livni were ongoing regularly, though he regretted that the Israeli side was not committed to its obligations as stipulated in the roadmap to peace plan.