US efforts focused on relaunch of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations

A US official was quoted as saying that US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright informed both Syria and Lebanon on Friday that their negotiations with Israel can only be resumed after making a Palestinian-Israeli peace accord.

The US official, who attended the talks held between Albright and the Syrian and Lebanese Foreign Ministers Farouk al-Sharaa and Rafik Hariri, respectively, said that Albright stressed to the two sides her determination to revive negotiations on all issues.

But the US secretary of state said that efforts have been pooled now to relaunch the Palestinian negotiations. The US official added that both Hariri and al-Sharaa expressed their best wishes for resuming the talks.