[Al Arabiya Latest] U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton failed on Saturday to persuade Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to resume talks with Israel, a spokesman for Abbas said, citing Jewish settlements as a stumbling block.Clinton, ramping up efforts by U.S. President Barack Obama to revive negotiations suspended since December, flew to Israel after seeing Abbas in Abu Dhabi. She planned to hold an evening meeting in Jerusalem with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "There was no breakthrough in the talks," Abbas's spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah told Reuters by telephone. "Israel should honor its obligations especially with regards to the total halt on the settlements," Abbas told reporters after the meeting in Abu Dhabi, adding that no breakthrough had been reached.
"The problem with the Israeli government is that it refuses to stop building settlements," he said.
The Palestinians' chief negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP the U.S. delegation informed them that Israel rejected calls for a complete freeze on settlement construction in the whole West Bank, including annexed Arab east Jerusalem.