RAMALLAH: US Secretary of State John Kerry stepped up his drive to get Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table, meeting with the Palestinian president on Friday as he sought to close a deep divide between the two sides over a formula for resuming peace talks after nearly five years.

The talks came a day after the Palestinian leadership balked at dropping a main condition for talks with the Israelis. They demand a guarantee that negotiations on borders between a Palestinian state and Israel would be based on the cease-fire line that held from 1949 until the 1967 war, when Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. Israel rejects preconditions on the talks, and the split casts a cloud of uncertainty over months of US mediation efforts.

Kerry held more than 90 minutes of talks on Friday morning with chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat in the Jordanian capital, Amman. Kerry also spoke by phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and officials from both sides, a US official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters. Kerry then went by helicopter to the West Bank town of Ramallah and entered talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

“Mr President, you should look happy”, a cheerful-looking Kerry said to Abbas in front of reporters as they sat before the closed-door talks began.

Hoping to push Israelis and Palestinians toward talks, President Barack Obama asked Netanyahu to work with Kerry “to resume negotiations with Palestinians as soon as possible”, according to a statement released by the White House late on Thursday.

Previous Israeli governments twice negotiated on the basis of the 1967 lines, but no peace accord was reached. Besides disagreeing over how much land to trade and where, the two sides hit logjams on other key issues, including dividing Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.

Netanyahu has given lukewarm endorsement to the idea of a Palestinian state but has not delineated his vision of boundaries, while demanding that the Palestinian recognize Israel as the Jewish state. Palestinians reject that, concerned that it would undermine their claims that millions of refugees and their descendants have the right to return to their original homes, lost in the 1948-49 war surrounding Israel's creation. Israel has rejected that claim outright.

After their late-night meeting, the Palestinians did not bring up their often-repeated demand that Israel stop building in Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem before talks could resume.

One official said that if Israel accepts the 1967 lines as a basis, that would make most of the settlements illegitimate.While Kerry has not publicised details of his plan, an Arab League decision on Wednesday to endorse his proposal raised speculation that the Palestinians would agree. Abbas traditionally has sought the blessing of his Arab brethren before making any major diplomatic initiative.

Ahmed Majdalani, a Palestinian leader, said Kerry has proposed holding talks for six to nine months focusing on the key issues of borders and security arrangements.—AP