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WASHINGTON, Aug. 8 -- The Israelis and Palestinians will have their second round of peace talks in Jerusalem on Aug. 14 and then a third in Jericho of the West Bank, the U.S. State Department said on Thursday.
"Negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians will be resuming Aug. 14 in Jerusalem, and will be followed by a meeting in Jericho," spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters at a daily press briefing.
She said U.S. peace envoy Martin Indyk and his deputy Frank Lowenstein will travel to the region to "help facilitate" the negotiations, and Secretary of State John Kerry will not make any announcement after the talks.
The Palestinians and Israelis agreed to meet further to discuss all the final status issues -- Jerusalem, security, the Jewish settlements, borders and refugees, after their chief negotiators met late last month in Washington for two-day initial talks.
Kerry said after the initial talks that the United States and the parties seek to "achieve a final-status agreement over the course of the next nine months" through direct negotiations.
He also highlighted that he would be the only one authorized to comment publicly on the talks, as the parties had agreed to keep the content of the negotiations confidential.
Moreover, Psaki said Kerry and Susan Rice, President Barack Obama's national security adviser, will hold separate roundtable discussions with Jewish-American and Arab-American community leaders on Thursday and Friday evenings at the White House.
"These meetings will serve as an opportunity to update community leaders on the resumption of direct final-status negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians, as well as to hear directly from these community leaders about their perspectives," Psaki said.
The last direct talks between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas lasted only three weeks before they fell apart in September 2010 over squabbles on settlement building in the West Bank.
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