Hurried huddle of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations

"... "Now, our European partners and we in Washington are waiting to see whether the parties are actually going to sign up to the president's principles as a basis for negotiations," Simon said, according to a source on the call who requested anonymity. "The Palestinians have been fairly forthcoming on this score. So we are kind of comfortable with that, but not completely, and now we are working with the Israeli government to see whether or not they can accept these principles as a basis for negotiations. Those discussions are ongoing."

"The timeframe for those discussions is kind of compressed," Simon further said, according to notes of his remarks, because UN rules require the paperwork for the possible Palestinian vote to be in several weeks before it would occur in September. "So we've got basically a month to see if we can work something out with the Israelis and Palestinians on accepting these principles as a basis for negotiations. If that happens, we are somewhat confident that the Palestinians would drop their action in the UN."..."