Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos believes that Israel and the Palestinian Authority will come to some form of an agreement before Prime Minister Ehud Olmert leaves office. Olmert has said he will resign after his Kadima party elects a successor in a primary election on September 17.
Moratinos was quoted in an article published Tuesday by the Hebrew-language Haaretz daily newspaper as saying he believed the talks with Olmert and PA Chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) were "extremely positive." The Spanish foreign minister added, in fact, that he was "convinced that these peace talks are going to be irreversible from what they have achieved. Whatever happens in Israeli internal politics and in the US administration - both sides and the international community need to work to make them irreversible," he said.
Abbas and Olmert are set to meet together without aides on Tuesday afternoon.