{{Israel says it will release a number of Palestinian prisoners as part of an agreement made with US Secretary of State John Kerry to resume peace talks.}}<\/p>\n
Yuval Steinitz, minister responsible for international relations, said it would involve “heavyweight prisoners in jail for decades”.<\/p>\n
Mr Kerry announced on Friday that initial talks would be held in Washington “in the next week or so”.<\/p>\n
The Israeli minister’s remarks are the first details of the deal.<\/p>\n
Mr Kerry had declined to tell reporters in Amman what the two sides had agreed to, saying that the “best way to give these negotiations a chance is to keep them private”.<\/p>\n
The agreement came at the end of four days of frenetic shuttle diplomacy, on Mr Kerry’s sixth visit to the region in the past few months.<\/p>\n
Mr Steinitz told Israeli public radio that the agreement adhered to the principles set out by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for kick-starting the talks.<\/p>\n
The release of prisoners would take place in stages, he said.<\/p>\n
According to Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, 4,817 Palestinians are held in Israeli jails. The release of prisoners held before the 1993 Oslo peace accords has been a long-held Palestinian demand.<\/p>\n
For their part, the Palestinians had committed themselves to “serious negotiations” for a minimum of nine months, said Mr Steinitz, who is a member of the prime minister’s Likud Beiteinu party.<\/p>\n
But he made clear that Israel had not accepted Palestinian pre-conditions, including a halt to settlement construction in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.<\/p>\n
“There is no chance that we will agree to enter any negotiations that begin with defining territorial borders or concessions by Israel, nor a construction freeze.”<\/p>\n
Israel and the Palestinians last held direct talks in 2010, which were halted over the issue of settlement-building.<\/p>\n
Settlements are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.<\/p>\n
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