October 04, 2007	Thursday	Ramazan 21, 1428

JERUSALEM, Oct 3: Israeli and Palestinian leaders held a new round of talks on Wednesday, meeting for the first time with their negotiating teams to try to bridge gaping differences ahead of a US-sponsored peace summit.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas met one-to-one for the fourth time in less than two months in Jerusalem before being joined by their newly formed negotiating teams, officials said.

There was no official statement after the two-hour talks, but Israeli and Palestinian officials were to brief reporters on their content later in the day.

The two sides remain far apart over what kind of document to draw up ahead of the Middle East conference, called by US President George Bush and expected to take place in Annapolis, Maryland in November.

The Palestinians want a detailed agreement and an implementation timeframe on the thorniest problems of the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict — borders, refugees and the status of Jerusalem.

Embroiled in a months-long struggle for power with the Islamist Hamas movement, Abbas and his secular Fatah faction want a detailed accord on the core issues that have sunk previous peace talks.

The Israelis favour a looser document — a joint declaration or a declaration of interests are the terms that have appeared in the Israeli media — ahead of the international meeting.—AFP