The offer was the latest sign that progress was being made toward renewing US-backed negotiations frozen for a year.Palestinian and Egyptian officials had no immediate comment on the plan, which two Israeli officials said Netanyahu raised on Tuesday at talks in Cairo with Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak.
Abbas was due to meet Mubarak next week and US President Barack Obama’s Middle East envoy George Mitchell is expected in the region in early 2010 for a new push to resume peace talks. “Israel’s idea of an Egypt-hosted peace summit with Abbas was proposed during Netanyahu’s talks with Mubarak,” an Israeli official told Reuters. Another official confirmed Netanyahu had raised the summit idea. Netanyahu’s office would not comment. On Wednesday, a spokesman, Mark Regev, said Israel hopes to “indeed see the resumption of talks with the Palestinians in the near future.”
Nabil Abu Rdainah, an aide to Abbas, said the region “will see important political activity in the next two weeks.”
