WASHINGTON/TEHRAN – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Acting Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas accepted on Friday an invitation by the United States and other powers to restart direct talks on September 2 in a modest step toward forging a deal within 12 months to create a Palestinian state and peacefully end one of the world's most intractable conflicts.

However Abbas said on Saturday that he would withdraw from peace talks with Israel if it resumed Jewish settlement activities in the occupied West Bank, an official said Saturday.
During a meeting for the Executive Committee of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Ramallah on Friday, “Abbas pledged to withdraw immediately if Israel announced new plans to build settlements,” Hana Amira, a member of the committee, told Xinhua.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Netanyahu and Abbas will meet with President Barack Obama on September 1, before formally resuming direct negotiations the following day at the State Department in Washington, Reuters reported.
“There have been difficulties in the past, there will be difficulties ahead,” Clinton said in a statement.
Clinton added that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah also were invited to the talks, which will mark the first direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians in 20 months.
“I ask the parties to persevere, to keep moving forward even through difficult times and to continue working to achieve a just and lasting peace in the region,” Clinton said.
Clinton's announcement was echoed by the Quartet of Mideast peace mediators -- the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations -- which issued its own invitation to the talks and underscored that a deal could be reached within a year.
Netanyahu quickly accepted the U.S. invitation and said reaching a deal would be possible but difficult.
After a meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah, the Palestinian leadership announced its acceptance of the invitation for face-to-face peace talks with Israel.
Settlement issue
But Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, warned that the Palestinians would pull out of the new talks if the Israelis allow a return to settlement building on lands that the Palestinians seek for a future state.
Israel's 10-month moratorium on Jewish settlement building in the occupied West Bank is due to end on September 26.
The invitation to the talks “contains the elements needed to provide for a peace agreement,” Palestinian leaders said.
“It can be done in less than a year,” Erekat said. “The most important thing now is to see to it that the Israeli government refrains from settlement activities, incursions, fait accomplis policies.”
The two sides are coming together for talks after decades of hostility, mutual suspicion and a string of failed peace efforts.
Obama's involvement
The Washington talks also signal a deeper personal involvement by Obama, who has repeatedly said that resolving the impasse between Palestinians and Israel is one of his chief diplomatic priorities.
“He is putting his political future into the process,” said Middle East analyst Stephen Cohen, president of the Institute for Middle East Peace and Development.
“He has entered a process that is supposed to reach its conclusion just at the time when he is going to be running heavily for president again, so he will have a lot riding on this,” Cohen said.
Others have just as much riding on the talks. In one year, the Palestinian Authority government plans to have established all the attributes of statehood, raising speculation that it might declare independence should talks fail to make progress on a “final status” treaty.
Photo: Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas (left) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (AFP/File/Menahem Kahana/Abbas Momani)