Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has accepted the principles of the accord reached by then-prime minister Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat in Taba in 2000, as a basis for negotiations, a source of the Palestinian Authority side of the current negotiations said. He says that the PA side has also agreed to the same principles but that this has not yet been formulated in a formal manner.
"The problem is that Olmert has internal opposition from Barak," the source said, according to Maariv-NRG.
"The gaps between [the positions of] Olmert and Abu Mazen are not large," the source said. "In one-on-one talks with Abu Mazen, Olmert has already agreed to Taba but he has not announced this formally." He estimated that an agreement of principles would be reached by the time of the Annapolis summit.