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JERUSALEM : Israeli political parties on Tuesday launched talks to set a date for snap elections to replace scandal-plagued Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, with the Middle East peace process at a standstill.
Both Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's centrist Kadima party and the right-wing Likud party of hawkish former premier Benjamin Netanyahu, the two frontrunners in the coming vote, favour holding elections as soon as possible.
Senior Kadima MP Tzachi Hanegbi told military radio that February 3 would be a "good date" while the head of Likud's parliamentary bloc Gideon Saar said elections should be held "as soon as possible to minimise the interim period".
President Shimon Peres formally initiated the process of holding new elections on Monday after Livni, who last month was elected to succeed Olmert at the head of Kadima, failed to assemble a coalition to replace him.
MPs now have three weeks to agree on a date for the election, after which parliament will be automatically dissolved and a vote held three months later in February 2009.
A poll released on Monday by Israel's mass-selling Yediot Aharonot newspaper said if the vote were held today Kadima would win the most seats with the Likud coming in second place and the centre-left Labour coming in a distant third.
Meanwhile two Israeli ministers called for a freeze on already stalled talks with Syria and the Palestinians until a new government is sworn in.
"(Negotiations) cannot advance during the election period with us and the United States," said Interior Minister and Kadima MP Meir Sheetrit.
"In the current political situation no agreement can be ratified by the transitional government and parliament. There can be no significant progress and the Syrians and the Palestinians understand this," he told public radio.
National Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, a senior Labour Party member, said the interim government "cannot make strategic decisions affecting the existence of the state of Israel".
"On security issues it must act, but as far as political issues are concerned it is better to wait for the results of the elections and the formation of the next government," the former defence minister told public radio.
Israel and the Palestinians formally relaunched peace talks at a US-hosted conference in November 2007 with the goal of ending their decades-old conflict by the end of the year -- but the talks have made little visible progress.
The White House nevertheless said on Monday it would press ahead with efforts to secure a full peace agreement by the time President George W. Bush leaves office in January despite Israel's political uncertainty .
In May, Israel entered into indirect Turkish-brokered talks with Syria, reviving negotiations that had collapsed in 2000 over the fate of the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War.
- AFP/ms
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