By Xinhua,
Jerusalem : Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said late Tuesday that talks between Israel and the Palestinians are making significant progress.
Olmert made the remarks at the opening ceremony of the “Facing Tomorrow” Presidential Conference in Jerusalem that will host U.S. President George W. Bush later this week.
“The discussions we are conducting with the Palestinian (National) Authority are serious. We are making significant progress,” Olmert told the meeting which will attract 27 incumbent or former state leaders and some 3,500 other guests.
“Understandings and agreements have been reached on very important matters, although not on all of them,” he said, without elaborating.
“We have been able to reach real understandings,” Olmert said, expressing his hope of reaching an agreement with the Palestinians, which “will ensure the future of Israel as a Jewish nation” and “will also receive the blessing of the Arab World.”
Achieving peace agreements with other Arab countries is also very important for Israel’s future, he stressed.
Olmert noted that “the greatest and most important challenge “Israel faces today is “the challenge of determining the permanent borders” in the framework of peace accords with its neighbors.
Israel “must strive to achieve an agreed-upon separation” with the Palestinians on a two-nation basis, he stressed.
Incumbent or former national leaders from about a dozen countries attended the occasion, among whom are Israeli President Shimon Peres and former British Prime Minister and now the Quartet envoy Tony Blair.
Addressing the ceremony before Olmert, Peres accused the Palestinian Hamas movement of hindering the Middle East peace process, saying that “if it weren’t for Hamas, a Palestinian state would already exist.”
U.S. President George W. Bush, who is due to arrive in Israel on Wednesday morning to celebrate the Jewish state’s 60thanniversary, will join other leaders at the Peres-sponsored conference Wednesday night.