Israeli-Palestinian negotiators began their third meeting on the final-status talks in Neve Ilan on November 14.

Israeli chief negotiator Oded Eran and his Palestinian counterpart Yasser Abed Rabbo headed their respective negotiating teams at the meeting, which was opened a short while at Neve Ilan Hotel, several kilometers northwest of Jerusalem.

The two sides held two meetings in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Monday and Thursday and discussed mainly the agenda for the final-status talks, which was launched September 13 at the Erez Checkpoint between Israel and the Gaza Strip under the Sharm El Sheikh peace deal signed by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

The new peace deal obliges the two sides to reach a framework agreement on the final-stauts talks by next February and a lasting permanent peace treaty by September the same year.

The two sides have to resolve such thorny issues as the status of Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees, Jewish settlements, borders and water resources divisions in the final-status talks.