Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said Sunday that Palestinians could not resume direct talks with Israel without guarantees, as the Palestinian and Israeli leaders met separately with Egypt's president. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who are taking part in US-brokered indirect talks, left the meetings with President Hosni Mubarak without making any statements. US Middle East envoy George Mitchell met with Mubarak earlier and then held talks with Moussa, who later told reporters the Palestinians could not move from the indirect talks to face-to-face negotiations. “We cannot automatically move from one negotiation to another without written guarantees,” said Moussa. “I felt the Palestinian president was committed to the decisions of the ministerial council that the automatic transition from indirect to direct negotiations is not feasible,” he said about his meeting with Abbas Saturday. It backed the talks again in May after the Palestinians said they received unspecified guarantees, but said direct negotiations would come only after a complete end to settlement building in occupied Palestinian lands. Netanyahu had told reporters before flying to Cairo that he would discuss the prospects for direct talks with Mubarak. The Palestinian leadership restated the conditions for the direct talks, suspended since Israel's offensive on Gaza in December 2008.
