By Ari Rabinovitch
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel and the Palestinians may resume indirect peace deliberations soon, with a U.S. mediator shuttling between negotiating teams, an Israeli cabinet minister said on Thursday.
Echoing comments made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a day earlier, cabinet minister Gilad Erdan said: "Sometimes it takes more than two to tango. And sometimes you need a third party to bring the positions closer."
Asked on Israel Radio if the resumption of negotiations, stalled for more than a year, would be in the format of proximity talks through U.S. mediation, Erdan said: "Yes, indeed."
Palestinian officials did not confirm Erdan's remarks, but pointed out that U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell has made more than a dozen visits to the region to try to revive peace negotiations leading to the creation of a Palestinian state.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said he would return to the negotiating table only after Israel stopped settlement building in the occupied West Bank. He termed insufficient a limited construction freeze announced by Netanyahu in November.
But Abbas told Britain's Guardian newspaper earlier this week that proximity talks could be a way to restart the negotiating process.
Such shuttle diplomacy could allow Abbas to pursue a peace deal without dropping his settlement freeze demand.
DIPLOMATIC DANCE
Netanyahu said in a speech on Wednesday he had reason to hope the negotiations could resume within weeks and reiterated Israel was ready to renew without preconditions the talks that have not convened since a Gaza war erupted in December 2008.
"In the Middle East, sometimes it takes three to even start to tango -- but I hope that after this we will be able to dance as a couple," he said, in apparent reference to U.S.-mediated negotiations as a prelude to a resumption of direct talks.
Asked about the possibility of reviving negotiations, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters the success of U.S. diplomatic efforts depended on Israel halting settlement construction.
Israel has refused to cease building homes for Jews in and around East Jerusalem which it captured in a 1967 war and annexed as part of its capital in a move not recognised internationally. Palestinians want the city to be capital of a future state.
(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem and Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
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