Rejecting one of the Palestinian Authority's conditions for moving to direct negotiations, Lieberman told a joint news conference with Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos that there was no room for linkage between such talks and a settlement construction freeze.
"We must start direct talks, but there is no place for a (construction) moratorium after September 25," he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared the construction freeze in West Bank settlements last November, after months of pressure from the Obama administration, and following a Palestinian refusal to begin talks without one.
The PA however described the freeze as insufficient, since it was partial, limited to 10 months, and did not include occupied East Jerusalem, which Palestinians want as the capital of their future state.
However, the sides did begin indirect talks in the spring, mediated by US envoy George Mitchell, who shuttles the short distance between Tel Aviv and Ramallah.
Moratinos insisted full negotiations should be held to address such key issues. "If you want to make peace, if you want to make a final settlement, you need to meet directly," he said at a news conference with Lieberman.
Abbas and Netanyahu "meeting together urgently, directly, without preconditions, I think is the best way to move forward," he added.
Israeli vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom on Wednesday accused Abbas of imposing "impossible" conditions for moving to direct peace talks. "The Palestinians have set three impossible conditions: that the negotiations start from the point they left off at the end of 2008... that they be based on a total Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines and that the freeze of (settlement) construction continue," he told public radio.
Meanwhile, a Palestinian official said that Abbas will tell the Arab League on Thursday indirect talks with Israel have not progressed enough to justify face-to-face peace negotiations. "Abbas will tell them that, until this moment, there is nothing to convince us to go to direct talks," the official told Reuters. "There is nothing new."
Resisting U.S. pressure, the Palestinian leader has said he first wants indirect talks to make progress, specifically on the issues of the security and borders of a Palestinian state he aims to found on land occupied by Israel since 1967.
He will brief the Arab League's peace process committee in Cairo on Thursday on the state of the current U.S.-mediated indirect talks that began in May after the forum's approval of a four-month timeframe, due to end in September.
The Palestinian official added: "We will tell the Arabs that the Americans brought nothing with them. We will most likely continue the remaining two months (of indirect talks) and see what happens."
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
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