国际英语新闻：Mitchell arrives in the region to promote Mideast talks

RAMALLAH, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell arrived in the Middle East on Monday in a bid to help pushing forward the stalled peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.

Mitchell will immediately start talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior Israeli government officials, and will hold talks on Tuesday in the West Bank city of Ramallah with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The U.S. envoy's visit to the region came after the U.S. administration decided to halt talks with Israel over freezing settlement constructions in the Palestinian territories as a condition to resume the direct peace talks, which were suspended on Oct. 2.

On the eve of Mitchell's visit to the region, Netanyahu welcomed the U.S. decision to abandon a U.S. request from the Israeli government to halt settlement constructions as a condition to resume the suspended direct peace talks with the Palestinians.

Mitchell's visit also comes several days before the Arab League (AL) follow up committee convenes in Cairo to decide the fate of the peace process and to study other options in case of the peace talks failure within the coming period.

Israeli and Palestinian envoys held separate talks on the weekend in Washington with U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, where they debated ways of bringing the peace talks back on track to save the Middle East peace process.