31/03/2008 Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said on Monday he will meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on April 7 for their first face-to-face talks in seven weeks. "My meeting with the prime minister will be held soon, I believe it will be on April 7," Abbas told a joint news conference in Amman with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
  
 The last meeting between Abbas and Olmert was in Jerusalem on February 19, after which the Palestinian president suspended all talks in protest at a deadly Israeli blitz on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. "I am confident that we will reach a comprehensive peace agreement in 2008 because we are working hard with Israel, the United States and other parties to reach this deal," Abbas said. "We want by the end of 2008 to reach this agreement, which will help establish a Palestinian state."
  
 Talks between Israel and the Palestinians were revived last November after a seven-year hiatus, with both sides vowing to try to reach agreement by the end of 2008, but negotiations have made little progress since.
  
 The two sides remain deeply divided on the core issues of the conflict, and continuing violence in and around the Gaza Strip and the expansion of settlements have repeatedly threatened to derail the process.
  
 Olmert said last week that he does not envisage the possibility of anything more than an outline agreement by 2009 and that settlement expansion will continue. Abbas has accused Israel of splitting the Palestinian territories into isolated cantons to prevent the creation of a state