Middle East peace talks 'getting down to business'

[oberliner]

Israeli and Palestinian leaders are "getting down to business" and tackling the main issues of the Middle East conflict, Hillary Clinton has said.

But in remarks ahead of a second day of talks, the US secretary of state gave no indication to whether the two sides were any closer to resolving a dispute over Jewish settlement building in the occupied West Bank that is threatening the future of the US-brokered negotiations.

"They are getting down to business," she said, referring to Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, whom she will see later in the day in a follow-up to talks held in Egypt yesterday.

"They have begun to grapple with the core issues that can only be resolved through face-to-face negotiations," Clinton said after meeting the Israeli president, Shimon Peres.

She described Netanyahu and Abbas as sincere and serious, and urged them to seize "a moment of opportunity" for peace because the status quo was "unsustainable".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/15/middle-east-talks-second-day