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Ramallah, West Bank: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will assess the state of peace talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at their next planned meeting in occupied Jerusalem on Monday, a senior Abbas aide said.
The meeting will be the first between the two leaders since Abbas briefly broke off talks last month following Israel's killing of over 120 Palestinians, many of them civilians, in an offensive in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
Israel said the incursion was intended to counter cross-border rocket fire by fighters.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and former Palestinian prime minister Ahmad Qorei have led regular negotiating sessions but these have shown little sign of progress since their launch at a peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland in November.
The sides are trying to reach a framework agreement by the end of 2008 that would outline the shape of a future Palestinian state.
Olmert has stated that implementation of any agreement would only take place once Abbas has reined in West Bank and Gaza Strip fighters, as called for under a long-stalled roadmap peace plan. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Abbas would present his position that Israel has not met any of its initial commitments under the roadmap plan.
Israel has yet to halt all colony activity and uproot Jewish outposts in the West Bank built without Israeli government authorisation, as stated in the roadmap.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said that neither Israel nor the Palestinians had done "nearly enough" to meet peacemaking obligations.
Olmert and Abbas last met on February 19.
Erekat said Abbas would also raise the situation in the Gaza Strip and the possibility of opening border crossings in and out of the blockaded territory which is ruled by Islamist Hamas who wrested control from Abbas's forces there in June.
Palestinian farmer killed
Meanwhile, a Palestinian farmer was killed in Gaza Strip near the border with Israel, medical workers said.
Local residents said the man was killed when a mortar fired by Palestinian fighters at Israel fell short in northern Gaza.
Fighter groups initially reported the man was killed by Israeli artillery fire.
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