WASHINGTON | Thu Aug 1, 2013 6:46pm EDT

JERUSALEM (AP) — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agreed to resume peace talks with Israel only after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry gave him a letter guaranteeing that the basis of the negotiations will be Israel's pre-1967 borders, two senior Palestinian officials said Saturday.

A Western official, however, later denied that the '67 lines would be the basis of negotiations.

The Palestinian officials, both of whom are close to the Palestinian leader and privy to internal discussions, said the U.S. letter also stipulated that both sides are to refrain from taking any steps that would jeopardize the outcome of the talks. Israel is not to issue new tenders for Jewish settlements in the West Bank, while the Palestinians are not to pursue diplomatic action against Israel at any international organizations, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to brief the media.

"The talks with Kerry were about to collapse, and the letter came as a lifeline in the last-minute bargaining," one of the Palestinian officials said.

U.S. officials have said in the past that Kerry would reiterate standing American positions on the goals for renewed talks, including that a Palestinian state should be negotiated on the basis of Israel's borders before the 1967 Mideast war, when Israel captured the Gaza Strip, West Bank and east Jerusalem.

There was no immediate comment from the State Department, though a Western official denied the Palestinian officials' claim about the '67 borders.

"There are no terms of reference or any other agreements that the '67 lines will be the basis for negotiations," the official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as the official had no authorization to speak to the media.

After a round of intense shuttle diplomacy, Kerry announced on Friday that Israel and the Palestinians had agreed on a basis for returning to the peace process, which broke down five years ago. The two sides are to meet — likely in the coming week — to work out final details on actually resuming their negotiations on the toughest issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Kerry would not give details on the agreement on the negotiations' framework. "The best way to give these negotiations a chance is to keep them private." he said. "We know that the challenges require some very tough choices in the days ahead. Today, however, I am hopeful."

The Palestinians long refused to return to the negotiating table unless Israel agreed to several preconditions, including that the talks be based on Israel's pre-1967 borders. Israel frequently called for talks to resume without preconditions, insisting that all core issues should be resolved through dialogue.

Speculation has been rife for weeks that the sides would find a way to sidestep Israel's reluctance to offer assurances of the 1967 lines as the framework for talks by having the guarantee provided by the United States.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces sharp opposition from within his majority coalition to such a move. One key ally, Economics Minister Naftali Bennett, has threatened to pull his Jewish Home Party out of the government altogether if the prime minister agrees to the border conditions.

The basis of the negotiations themselves — not the core issues at the heart of the conflict — has been a major impediment to resuming talks. On Thursday evening, the Palestinian leadership balked at dropping a main condition: They demanded a guarantee that negotiations on borders between a Palestinian state and Israel would be based on the cease-fire line that held from 1949 until the 1967 war.

Kerry's announcement late Friday suggested that the question had been resolved, although the top U.S. diplomat offered no details.

Netanyahu issued a statement Saturday evening welcoming Kerry's announcement and thanking him for his efforts, saying he "views the resumption of the political process at this time a vital strategic interest."

Earlier Saturday, Israel's intelligence and strategic affairs minister offered a few details on the framework. He confirmed that Israel would release some Palestinian prisoners, but said it will not meet other long-standing Palestinian demands before negotiations resume, such as a settlement freeze or defining the 1967 borders as the basis for talks.

Yuval Steinitz told Israel Radio that prisoners Israel has agreed to release include some who "have been sitting in jail for dozens of years," He did not say how many would be freed, adding only that they would be released in phases.

The fate of the prisoners is extremely sensitive in Palestinian society. After decades of fighting Israel, many families have had a member imprisoned and the release of prisoners has been a longstanding demand. The Palestinians are held on a range of charges, from rock throwing to deadly assaults like shooting attacks or bombings targeting Israeli soldiers and civilians. The Palestinians mostly view the prisoners as heroes while Israelis tend to see them as terrorists.

In a sign of the opposition Netanyahu faces even within his own government, deputy defense minister Danny Danon issued a statement condemning the prisoner release, saying "these murderers must not be released as an 'act of good will' or as a prize for returning to the negotiating table."

Steinitz said it a nine-month timetable was agreed to for the talks to prevent them from collapsing along the way. He also said the Palestinians agreed to refrain from taking action against Israel at the United Nations while the talks are taking place — echoing the statement from the Palestinian officials.

Israel's chief negotiator with the Palestinians, Tzipi Livni, welcomed the revival of the peace process. She said it was difficult to restart talks after years of mistrust between the sides, but that she is "hopeful" about them.

"This is a very heavy responsibility," Livni told Israel's Channel 2 TV of the talks. "All the issues will be on the table."

Final status negotiations aim to reach a deal on the core issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including Jerusalem, borders, the fate of Palestinian refugees and security arrangements. Talks ground to a halt five years ago, and previous efforts to revive them have stalled, particularly over Palestinian demands that Israel announce a freeze in construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, which they claim as part of a future state along with Gaza. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.

In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said his group rejects Kerry's announcement, saying it does not recognize Abbas' "legitimacy to negotiate" on their behalf. The militant Hamas group rules Gaza, and has been at odds with Abbas since taking over the seaside strip in 2007.

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Associated Press writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

CAIRO — Egypt’s interim president swore in a new cabinet on Tuesday that was dominated by liberal and leftist politicians, sweeping away the brief era of Islamist political rule built by the country’s deposed president, Mohamed Morsi.

Not one of the 34 cabinet members belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood, the 80-year-old Islamist movement that propelled Mr. Morsi to the presidency a year ago, or to any other Islamist party. The cabinet does include three women and three Coptic Christians, making it slightly more diverse, in some respects, than Mr. Morsi’s cabinet.

Egypt’s defense minister, Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, who has emerged as the country’s de facto leader since Mr. Morsi’s ouster two weeks ago, added the title of deputy to the prime minister to his portfolio, though the specific powers it carried remained vague.

Even as analysts credited some of the ministers for their competence and for bringing badly needed expertise to Egypt’s escalating economic crisis after a year of mismanagement, the composition of the cabinet exposed it to the same criticisms once heaped on Mr. Morsi: that he excluded his opponents from governing and, in the process, demolished any sense of political consensus.

That seemed likely to widen the political fissures that appeared during Mr. Morsi’s presidency and after his ouster, as his supporters took to the streets, vowing to remain until he was released from custody and restored to his post, a demand that was echoed by the Brotherhood.

“In this political scene, they are sending a signal that says, ‘We won and you lost,’ ” said Moataz Abdel Fattah, a political economist at Cairo University.

A spokesman for Adli Mansour, Egypt’s interim president, denied Tuesday that anyone had been “excluded” and said that positions had been offered to members of the Brotherhood and the ultraconservative Islamist Al Nour Party.

But a Brotherhood spokesman, Gehad al-Haddad, said the party was not offered any posts. At the same time, he made clear that the Brotherhood was unwilling to take part, saying, “The whole thing is illegitimate.”

In a statement, Al Nour, which initially blessed the military takeover and called for a purely technocratic government, said the new government’s partisan makeup was a “repetition of the same mistake they blamed the former government for.”

“The policy of monopoly and the exclusion of others,” the statement continued, “deepens the state of division, confusion and instability.”

The formation of the government is part of a military-led transition plan that is supposed to lead to parliamentary elections within six months. The interim prime minister, Hazem el-Beblawi, a respected 76-year-old economist, faces an economy in free fall, deepening security challenges in the Sinai Peninsula and elsewhere, and a drop in tourism that has choked off a critical source of foreign currency.

At the same time, his government has received critical aid, including from gulf Arab states that provided nearly $12 billion after Mr. Morsi’s ouster. This week, the new finance minister said the financial assistance might allow the government to put off negotiations for an aid package from the International Monetary Fund, as well as the painful cuts in subsidies that the loan would require.

Analysts said questions about the government’s legitimacy would depend on Mr. Beblawi’s ability to deliver results quickly to a frustrated public and prove that his government is independent from General Sisi, who brought it to power.

The widespread perception that Egypt’s sprawling state bureaucracy had stopped cooperating with Mr. Morsi means that the new government will face even harsher scrutiny than its predecessor, analysts said.

“These people came in on top of tanks,” said Emad Shahin, a political scientist at the American University in Cairo. “It is not an inclusive government.” At the same time, he said, the government will most likely face fewer obstacles because of “a will from the military and certain regional powers.”

“People wish this government to succeed, unlike the previous one,” Mr. Shahin said.

Several ministers who had served under Mr. Morsi’s widely criticized cabinet returned to their posts. Despite frequent blackouts before Mr. Morsi’s ouster, the electricity minister kept his job, as did the interior minister, Mohamed Ibrahim, whom rights advocates criticized as having done nothing to overhaul security services that are notorious for abuse accusations.

Other appointments, though, seemed to indicate a willingness to try something new. Kamal Abu-Eita, a trade unionist known for opposing former President Hosni Mubarak, was chosen as the minister of manpower, and Laila Iskander Kamel, a community organizer who has worked with Cairo’s garbage collectors, became minister of environment.

Analysts also noted that Mr. Beblawi, who served in a previous government after Mr. Mubarak was deposed in 2011, had shown some independence from the military when he offered his resignation after the army was accused of killing protesters.

In a book he wrote about his time in government, Mr. Beblawi described the shock of the killings. “The state didn’t seem to exist, or seemed completely lost,” he wrote. The head of the armed forces, which was ruling Egypt at the time, refused to accept the resignation, Mr. Beblawi said, so he returned to work for a few weeks before stepping down.

Tuesday’s swearing in of the cabinet, broadcast live on state television, was eclipsed by clashes in Cairo early in the day between Mr. Morsi’s supporters and riot police officers that left at least seven people dead and hundreds wounded. The fighting, the worst in days, accentuated the challenges facing the new government as Mr. Morsi’s Islamist supporters appeared to escalate their campaign to reinstate him.

His supporters had largely confined themselves to a central encampment since June 8, when soldiers and police officers fired on a pro-Morsi demonstration, killing more than 50 people. But late Monday, they ventured out, snarling traffic in some of the city’s busiest roadways before the police responded with force.

The government’s legitimacy “is going to be very hard to measure,” said Zaid al-Ali, a Cairo-based constitutional expert with the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. “Under normal circumstances, the government would be accountable to the people, through elections and the media,” he said. “Now there is no parliamentary institution. The only institution that can hold government accountable is the people, through demonstrations.”

“Legitimacy,” he said, “is hanging by a thread.”

Palestinians demonstrated in Ramallah on Monday in protest against recent meetings between PLO officials and Israeli politicians.

The protest took place outside the PLO headquarters, where demonstrators condemned the meetings as a form of normalization with Israel.

The protesters chanted, “Abed Rabbo, go away!” and “Normalization is destructive!” The protest came following meetings in Ramallah and Jerusalem organized by the Geneva Initiative group.

On July 7, the group took several Shas and Likud officials to a meeting with Abed Rabbo and a number of PLO officials in Ramallah.

The move has since drawn sharp criticism from many Palestinians and various political factions, including Mahmoud Abbas’s ruling Fatah faction.

Fatah and other Palestinian groups have been waging an “anti-normalization” campaign to prevent Palestinians from meeting with Israelis.

Ibrahim Ajouri, one of the organizers of Monday’s protest, said that he and his friends were demanding the removal of Abed Rabbo from the PLO for meeting with Israelis. Ajouri said it was “disgraceful” that the July 7 meeting with Israelis was held at the headquarters of the PLO, “which was built over the remains of martyrs and heroes.”

Jamal Juma’ah, another organizer, said that they would not allow any Palestinians to engage in normalization activities with Israel. He also voiced opposition to the resumption of peace talks with Israel.

Fatah legislator Najat Abu Baker said that the protest was aimed at preventing Palestinians from “drowning in normalization with Israel.” She said that Palestinians were strongly opposed to meetings with Israelis that are aimed at promoting normalization between the two sides.