 | How very clever of them, to be sure. |
(Ma'an) -- During talks in Washington, Paleostinian negotiators rejected an Israeli proposal to form 12 joint committees, PLO chief Saeb Erekat said Sunday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the proposal during the opening round of direct negotiations, re-launched after a 20-month hiatus, Erekat said in an interview with the Jordanian daily Ad-Dustur.
The PLO official said Netanyahu proposed the committees in order to waste time and postpone negotiations.
Concerning the absence of the Middle East Quartet from negotiations, Erekat told the Jordanian daily the US administration said it represented the Quartet.
Quartet representative Tony Blair attended a dinner on the eve of talks but did not participate in meetings, while envoys from the EU, Russia and the UN were absent from negotiations.
The US would head a meeting with the Quartet and the vaporous Arab League follow-up committee at the end of the month in New York, Erekat told the Jordanian newspaper.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would participate in the next round of negotiations, scheduled to be held in the region on 14-15 September, Erekat added.
The agenda for the summit had been set, the negotiations chief said, and included all final status issues.
President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas would meet Netanyahu every two weeks, and the role of the PLO negotiations team was to prepare for these meetings, Erekat said, adding that agreements reached would be implemented within 12 months. 
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