BBC News with Jerry Smit.
The US Secretary of State John Kerry says Israel and the Palestinians have agreed to resume direct peace talks for the first time in three years. He said initial talk should begin in Washington within a week or so. Mr Kerry cautioned that the deal was still being formalised and many problems lay ahead.
"No one believes that the long-standing differences between the parties can be resolved overnight or just wiped away. We know that the challenges require some very tough choices in the days ahead. Today, however, I am hopeful.”
Yolande Knell in Jerusalem was listening to Mr Kerry.
Twice in the past two days Mr Kerry changed his scheduled flight home because of signs of a breakthrough in his diplomatic efforts. Finally he was able to make the declaration he’d hoped for. Earlier Mr Kerry made a previously unscheduled trip to Ramallah in the West Bank for his third meeting this week with the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. He said he’d also been speaking on the telephone to the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and praised both leaders for showing courage.
The US state department says the CIA’s former station chief in Milan, who was convicted by an Italian court for his alleged role in the kidnapping of an Egyptian Muslim cleric, is on his way back to the United States from Panama. Robert Seldon Lady was one of 23 Americans sentenced for their part in the extraordinary rendition of Hassan Nasr, who was kidnapped and taken to Egypt where he says he was tortured.