Israel frees Palestinian prisoners ahead of new round of talks

PanARMENIAN.Net - Israel freed 26 Palestinian prisoners on Wednesday, Aug 14 to keep U.S.-sponsored peacemaking on course for a second round of talks, but diplomacy remained dogged by Israeli plans for more Jewish homes on land the Palestinians claim for a future state, Reuters reported.

Negotiators are due to convene in the afternoon in Jerusalem, the city at the heart of the decades-old conflict, after a three-year stand-off ended with the first round of talks in Washington last month.

Follow-up meetings are expected every few weeks in venues including Jericho in the occupied West Bank in pursuit of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's goal of clinching an accord in nine months. Israel says it supports his vision but in the past few days has announced plans to increase its settlement of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which, along with the Gaza Strip, the Palestinians want as part of their state in any deal.

The 26 men released were the first batch of 104 Palestinians serving long jail terms, many for deadly attacks on Israelis. Their freedom may improve Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's domestic standing despite his having dropped demands to condition peace talks on a halt to settlement building.

Hundreds of their relatives gathered in the presidential compound in the West Bank capital of Ramallah in the early hours of Wednesday, waving Palestinian flags and greeting their arrival with tears and chants.

Abbas greeted each of the eleven prisoners released to the West Bank with kisses on both cheeks. He locked hands with some of the prisoners making victory signs on a high stage and basked in waves of flash photography.

"We congratulate ourselves and our families for our brothers who left the darkness of the prisons for the light of the sun of freedom. We say to them and to you that the remainder are on their way, these are just the first," Abbas told the crowd.

Few expect the latest negotiations to resolve issues that have defied solution for decades, such as borders, settlements, the status of Jerusalem and the right of return for Palestinian refugees. Yet neither Netanyahu nor Abbas wants to be seen as putting the brakes on the U.S. peace drive, Reuters says.

"We set ourselves nine months during which we will try to get to something with the Palestinians," Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon told reporters on Tuesday. "We have been trying in the 20 years since Oslo (interim peace accords), during 120 years of conflict. You can hear the hint of skepticism in my words, but we have decided to give it a chance."