The Israeli Foreign Minister has said that Israel and the Palestinians were closer to peace than they had ever been. Shlomo Ben-Ami was speaking in Turkey after talks with the Turkish Foreign Minister on the crisis in the Middle East. "We have come very, very close and the gaps are there and they need to be bridged," he said, "But we are closer to peace than we have ever been before." Mr Ben-Ami met Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, in Cairo on Thursday.
In a separate development, caretaker Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barak's inner "peace" cabinet has postponed a meeting to discuss a Palestinian proposal for peace talks this weekend at the Egyptian resort of Taba. The meeting would have clashed with the funeral of a 16-year-old Israeli boy who was reportedly lured to his death over the internet by a Palestinian lover. Both sides condemned the killing, which took the death toll over recent months to at least 309 Palestinians, 45 Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs in 16 weeks.
