Following yesterday's meeting between Netanyahu and Mubarak it's been announced that the prisoner swap talks are to be reopened, with Egypt acting as intermediary.
TEL AVIV (AFP)--Israel and Egypt agreed Monday to renew Cairo-led efforts to broker a prisoner swap between the Jewish state and the Islamist Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip, senior officials said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will next week name a pointman to coordinate the indirect talks on the release of Gilad Shalit, who was captured by Gaza militants almost three years ago, a senior Israeli official told AFP.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak told Netanyahu on Monday at the Red Sea resort town of Sharm Al-Sheikh that his intelligence chief Omar Suleiman "will immediately start contacts to renew the negotiations," another Israeli official said.
Negotiations in Cairo in mid-March aimed at securing the prisoner exchange foundered, with Hamas and Israel blaming each other for the failure.
The talks haven't been renewed since Netanyahu's right-leaning government took office last month, and the premier has so far refused to say whether he was willing to accept the outlines of the previous talks.
Israel, which fought a devastating 22-day war with Hamas in Gaza over the new year, has made a lasting ceasefire and an end to its blockade of the enclave conditional on Shalit's release.
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