A senior Palestinian official accused Israel of using the crisis in the negotiations to shore up its list of demands, as the US continued its intense efforts to end the deadlock in the peace process.
US State Department Jen Psaki told reporters in Washington that its envoy to the region Martin Indyk had met Sunday night with Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Palestinian Chief negotiator Saeb Erekat. She said that she expected a second such meeting to be held Monday night, but did not have any further details.
"Our focus on this point is on evaluating where we are, and where we might go," Psaki said. "We're focused on determining whether the process can move forward."
Psaki said that the hours upon hours the parties have spent with one another is an "indication of their seriousness."
"There are certainly parties on both sides that don't support a peace effort, and have never supported a peace effort," she added.
Israel Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman is also due to meet with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Washington on Wednesday. Psaki said that Kerry has also been on the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Details from the Indyk meetings have not been released, but public statements by Israeli and Palestinian officials show that the positions have not budged. With Israel demanding that the Palestinians rescind their unilateral move of affirming 15 international treaties and conventions. The Palestinians are insisting that Israel must release as promised 26 prisoners from its jails.
Mohamed Shtayeh, member of the Fatah Central Committee said, ”Israel is trying to extend the negotiations beyond the agreed date (April 29)."
"We say that the extension of the talks is not significant. What is more important is whether Israel is serious and has good intentions in pursuing the negotiations. Israel should release the prisoners, stop settlement construction and accept the 1967 borders as a basis for a two-state solution," he added.
Shtayeh, who previously served as member of the PA negotiating team with Israel, said spoke against a package deal that Israel had tried to work out to extend the negotiations for an additional nine months during which time Palestinians would still refrain from seeking membership in UN agencies.
He said that Israel was also demanding the release of Jonathan Pollard from American prison as a pre-condition for freeing the Palestinian prisoners.
As part of this deal Israel would also agree to free 400 more Palestinian prisoners. Shtayeh pointed out that the PA leadership has demands of its own, including the release of Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine Secretary-General Ahmed Sa'adat and PA Gen. Fuad Shobaki. He said that the PA was opposed to the deportation of any of the released prisoners.
Shtayeh told reporters in Ramallah that the Palestinians were also opposed to the demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
He said that this demand was "baseless" since the PLO and Israel had mutually recognized each other in 1993.
"The Palestinian people and their leadership have already made an historic concession by accepting a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 lines, which makes up 22% of the size of historic Palestine," Shtayeh explained.
He accused Israel of working to scuttle US Secretary of State John Kerry's efforts to achieve peace by "announcing new settlement projects, more killings, arrests, house demolitions and violence." Referring to Abbas's latest move, the Fatah official said that the decision to join 15 international institutions and conventions was a "natural right" and not only in retaliation for Israel's refusal to release the prisoners at the end of March.
Noting that relations between Israel and the PA were now at a turning point, Shtayeh said that the dispute between the two sides was over all issues, including prisoners, Jerusalem, borders and Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley.
He brushed aside Israeli threats to impose economic sanctions on the Palestinians following Abbas's move, saying the Palestinians were anyway being punished every day by the presence of the "occupation and its practices."
Another senior Fatah official, Nabil Sha'ath, said that the Palestinians were unable to make additional concessions "after we already gave up 78% of our lands to Israel." He too was referring to the PLO's acceptance of the two-state solution on the basis of the pre-1967 lines.
Sha'ath told the Palestinian Ma'an news agency that the current US-sponsored talks between the Palestinians and Israel were only aimed at extending the peace talks beyond April.
"Even if we return to the negotiating table, we won't accept a Palestinian state on anything less than the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital," Sha'ath said. "We also can't make more concessions. Isn't it enough that we already gave up 78% of our land in favor of Israel? We also won't recognize Israel as a Jewish state."
Sha'ath said that the PA leadership was planning to pursue its efforts to join more international institutions and treaties.
PA Minister for Prisoners Affairs, Issa Qaraqi, said that the PA demanded at Sunday night's meeting the release of 1200 prisoners in addition to the fourth batch of inmates as a pre-condition for agreeing to the extension of the peace talks.
He said that the PA has also demanded that Israel allow some 30 Palestinians who were deported to Europe and the Gaza Strip after barricading themselves inside the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem more than a decade ago to return to the West Bank.
According to Qaraqi, Sunday's discussions did not achieve progress because Israel was conditioning the release of the fourth batch of prisoners on Palestinian agreement to extend the talks after April.
A PA source in Ramallah who asked not to be identified said that the PA leadership might agree to extend the talks for two months only.
The source told the Palestinian daily al-Quds that the purpose of the talks would be only to "draw the borders" along the pre-1967 lines. The source stressed that Abbas would not backtrack on his decision to join international institutions and conventions.