Barak tells Mitchell Israel ready to help peace efforts

WASHINGTON – Defense Minister Ehud Barak met with US special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell in Washington Tuesday. Barak told Mitchell that Israel was willing to consider "any positive contribution to the peace efforts."

Following the talks Barak and the US envoy agreed to set up a meeting between Mitchell and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

A joint statement of the two is expected to be released later in the day.

The defense minister did not say whether he and Mitchell managed to reach an understanding on the issue of settlement freeze, but stated: "We weren't stuck on the subject of the settlements and we're not stuck now. We're continuing the dialogue in order to reach understandings.

"The meeting was conducted in a very good atmosphere, despite the differences," he added.

Barak stated that the meeting focused on President Barack Obama's regional peace plan, which Israel endorses. "We are weighing any positive contribution we can make to promote the peace efforts, while taking into consideration our security interests," he said.

On Monday the State Department said it was not ruling out the possibility of a compromise with Israel on a settlement freeze, amid reports that Israel might be ready to agree to stall settlement construction for three months.

"We've been working with all the parties to try and come up with... an environment conducive to the resumption of negotiations," said State Department spokesman Ian Kelly.

"And we look forward to sitting down and talking about what we can do to move this process forward," he added.

But he added:" I'm not going to prejudge what happens tomorrow (Tuesday)."