Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister, is to meet Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, in the West Bank to discuss broad "principles" for a Palestinian state.

Olmert agreed to expand the scope of discussions with Abbas to include "fundamental issues" that are key to creating a state and ending the conflict, US and Palestinian officials said.

Israeli and Palestinian officials said the two leaders would meet on

Monday in the West Bank city of Jericho.

Palestinian officials said Olmert would be the first Israeli prime minister to travel to a Palestinian city in more than six years.

Olmert's office declined to list what specific key issues would be discussed.

An Israeli government spokesman said only that most of the meeting would be one-on-one and focus on "how to arrive at the two-state solution".

Final status

Saeb Erekat, an Abbas aide, said there were three so-called final

status issues of common borders, the status of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees.

The last round of final status talks broke down six years ago and Israeli officials stressed that the talks getting under way on Monday would fall far short of a resumption of final-status negotiations.

Recent talks between Abbas and Olmert have largely been restricted to financial and security issues and to creating a "political horizon", which Israel defined as the legal, economic and governmental structures of a Palestinian state.

Israeli officials said the goal was to reach agreement on a set of common principles on borders, refugees and other issues without

filling in the most divisive details, such as which Jewish settlements would have to be uprooted.

If Olmert and Abbas agree on "principles", they will be presented to a US-sponsored conference expected to be held in November, Israeli and Western officials said.

Olmert and Abbas would then set up working groups to begin negotiating the details, according to Western officials.

PHOTO CAPTION

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (L) and Palestinian leader Mahumd Abbas shake hands during a regional summit in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, June 2007. (AFP)

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