Kerry and Netanyahu (archive)
Kerry and Netanyahu (archive)Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will head to Rome on Sunday for a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, AFP reported Wednesday.

Kerry and Netanyahu "will discuss a number of issues, including recent developments in Israel, the West Bank (Judea and Samaria -ed.), and Jerusalem and the region," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters.

A top focus of the talks will be the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) call for a United Nations resolution by the end of the year that would set a timetable for Israel's withdrawal from Judea and Samaria.

The PA’s chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, declared on Tuesday that the PA was hoping to have the resolution passed by the end of December.

Kerry's nine-month pursuit of a peace deal between Israel and the PA collapsed in early April, after the PA breached the conditions of the talks by applying to international treaties.

Speaking on Sunday to the Saban Forum, Kerry vowed: "I won't give up."

But he acknowledged that, after Netanyahu called snap elections in March, it was unlikely any fresh peace negotiations could "resume tomorrow."

"There is an election in the next few months now in Israel, and the Israeli people will have important choices to make for their future," Kerry told the Saban Forum.

"And we look forward to working closely with the new government, whatever its composition, whenever it is formed," he said.

Kerry again insisted that the current status quo in Israeli-Palestinian Arab relations was unsustainable, adding "ongoing unrest had brought new traumas to everybody."

"Common sense and strategic analysis tells us definitively: this cannot go on," Kerry pleaded.