U.S. Middle East envoy begins talks in Israel

TEL AVIV, Israel (Reuters) -- U.S. President Bill Clinton's Middle East envoy began talks on Thursday to assess the chances of Israel and the Palestinians reaching a peace agreement after the failure of the Camp David summit.

The envoy, Dennis Ross, began a visit expected to last until Sunday by holding talks in Tel Aviv with Shlomo Ben-Ami, Israel's chief negotiator and acting foreign minister.

"The most important thing is to have a chance to talk to both sides and then we'll see what we can do to work with them to try to overcome the differences and move things along," Ross told reporters before the meeting.

"Our focus is on...making a judgement as to how both sides are working and whether or not the differences that exist can be overcome."

An Israeli diplomatic source said Ben-Ami told Ross during the meeting that Israel "was ready to go to a (second) summit only if there is major flexibility on the side of the Palestinians that would enable progress."

The source said Ross, Ben-Ami and the U.S. ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk discussed the Israeli position after Camp David and explored various ways of advancing the peace process.

Ross was due to meet Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat later in the day or on Friday.

Earlier, Ben-Ami said Ross's visit would determine if any progress had been made since Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's 15-day peace summit with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat ended in disagreement last month at Camp David, near Washington.

"The progress needs to come after Camp David from the Palestinian side," Ben-Ami said. "The question is whether it is possible to check whether there has been essential changes (in their stance)."

The two sides have traded blame for the failure of the summit.

They have set September 13 as a target for forging a final treaty on issues including borders, Palestinian refugees, the status of Jerusalem and the fate of Jewish settlements in occupied territory.

Barak's security advisor Danny Yatom said on Thursday that Clinton and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright would decide whether conditions were ripe for a decisive second summit following Ross's assessment of his meetings.

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