Palestinian and Israeli officials said Monday's two-hour meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, along with their respective negotiating teams, was "very positive, deep and serious."
An Israeli official, who attended the meeting, said on condition of anonymity the two sides "have made significant progress on the two issues of outlining the borders of the future Palestinian state and the security arrangements between Israel and the Palestinian state."
He added that the two leaders instructed their negotiating teams, headed by former Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, to "move forward" on these issues. He said the negotiators were "already working with maps during the talks."
Palestinian officials would not reveal any details, having declared the negotiations "secret," as technical experts from both sides have been meeting in Western capitals to agree on the boundaries of a Palestinian state and what that state entails.
Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said while the talks were serious and deep, "it is really premature to jump to any conclusions and start measuring progress or lack of it … They [Israelis] know the basic principle agreed by the two sides is that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed."
Palestinian officials privately told the Middle East Times the progress that the Israeli officials were referring to were general principles agreed upon regarding swapping land, where Israel would give the Palestinians nearly the same amount of land it would keep in the West Bank where large Jewish settlements are concentrated.
Qurei recently refused to accept a draft of a map outlining the Israeli vision for the Palestinian state's borders because "it looked like Swiss cheese," according to a well-placed Palestinian source.
The source added that the two sides may have now agreed on a general framework regarding the boundaries, of which the joint technical committees would try to map out this week after the Palestinians gave their own version of the borders.
One Palestinian official said the Israelis were eager to announce progress of any kind, even if it is not substantial, ahead of U.S. President George W. Bush's visit to Israel next week.
Bush is due to participate in celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of the creation of the Israeli state, the "Nakba," or "catastrophe" to the Palestinians who lost their homes in the 1948 war and whose fate so far remains untouched in the final status negotiations.
Although Abbas said on Sunday, after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, that "all" the core issues, including the future of Jerusalem and some 5 million Palestinian refugees, were being negotiated "in-depth and in very clear detail," other Palestinian officials say these questions have not yet been discussed seriously due to the deep differences on these highly difficult issues.
Monday's meeting and the Israeli announcement came just after Rice wound up a two-day visit to push forward the slow-paced negotiations that were launched at the Annapolis conference in November, and to have some tangible steps to show Bush when he visits.
In unusually critical remarks to the Israelis on Sunday, Rice described the Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank as "particularly problematic" and stressed that Israel needed to do more to make the life of Palestinians bearable by removing military roadblocks.
She said after separately meeting with Israeli and Palestinian leaders that she continues "to raise with the Israelis the importance of creating an atmosphere that is conducive to negotiations."
Nevertheless, Rice added she was still hopeful the two sides could reach a peace deal before Bush leaves office in January 2009, a remark echoed by Israeli officials after the Olmert-Abbas talks on Monday.
"These were possibly the most serious talks the two sides ever had," Olmert's spokesman Mark Regev said. "The timetable set out in Annapolis is achievable."
He added the two leaders also discussed "the tangible issues on the ground. We understand fully that political dialogue must be supported by tangible steps on the ground or you can have cynicism on the ground."
Analysts suggest that Rice may have given the Israeli government a strong nudge to ease restrictions on the daily lives of Palestinians in the West Bank after Abbas indicated his frustration by Israel's refusal to stop settlement expansion in the West Bank and removing the roadblocks, thus undermining his leadership and the negotiations.
Officials close to Abbas have privately said he is considering resigning if the negotiations produce no results in the next two to three months, a move that would thwart the entire negotiating process.
That could be why Rice instructed personnel from the U.S. embassy in Israel to observe the removal of the Israeli roadblocks in the West Bank, after she held four meeting with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak to persuade him to take down some 600 roadblocks.
She told reporters on a plane taking her back to Washington on Monday that the U.S. monitors would "get out around the communities, talk to the people who are trying to get through checkpoints and really get a sense of how the movement and access is working."
Palestinian analysts say such a move might not guarantee the aspired Palestinian rights, but it was a first step indicating the U.S. administration may be ready to exert pressure on Israel to arrive at an acceptable peace arrangement this year.