Israel seeks Palestinian dialogue

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Israel's foreign minister says it wants to maintain a permanent channel of communication with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Tzipi Livni was speaking after talks at the UN in New York with Mr Abbas, which she called important and constructive.

Mr Abbas told her the national unity government he was seeking between his Fatah faction and militants from Hamas would recognise Israel's legitimacy.

He also promised to do all he could to free a captured Israeli soldier.

Gilad Shalit was captured by Palestinian militants in June sparking an Israeli military intervention in Gaza that has cost the lives of more than 210 Palestinians, many of them civilians, and two Israeli soldiers.

"I don't see this as one meeting and each side checks off a box and goes home. The idea is to establish a permanent channel of dialogue," Ms Livni told Israeli army radio.

Continuous contact

Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat says the meeting focused on ways to revive dialogue between the sides in order to begin the implementation of the roadmap peace plan.

"The issue of Israeli soldier Shalit was brought up in the meeting as well as the Palestinian prisoners," Mr Erekat said.

He added the talks were to pave the way for a series of meetings between Mr Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Israeli contacts with Palestinian officials largely ceased after Hamas, which is sworn to Israel's destruction and categorised in the West as a terrorist organisation, won Palestinian parliamentary elections in January.

The hour-long meeting on the margins of the UN General Assembly was the first between Mr Abbas and Ms Livni in five months.

US President George W Bush is expected to hold talks with Mr Abbas on Wednesday, their first since October 2005.