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Israeli President Shimon Peres held a secret meeting with his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas two months ago on resuming the peace talks between the two sides, a report in the London-based Sunday Times revealed on Sunday.
According to the report that quoted Israeli and Palestinian sources, Peres met with Abbas in Amman, Jordan and convinced the Palestinian leader that Jewish settlers might have to stay in a future Palestinian state.
"He (Peres) convinced him to accept that West Bank settlers and Jewish residents of east Jerusalem could remain in their settlements but be subject to the Palestinian state," a source told Sunday Times.
On a related note, Peres on Sunday congratulated Abbas in a phone conversation on the renewal of the peace process, which came to a halt in 2010 over Israel's expansion of settlement activities in the West Bank.
On Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the resumption of the peace talks and said they were of "vital strategic interest for the state of Israel."
On Friday evening, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who had visited the region six times in four months trying to mediate a resumption of the negotiations, announced the two sides had agreed to restart direct talks.
