JERUSALEM, Jan. 28 (Saba) -- A soon-to-be-released autobiography by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says that a viable peace deal with the Palestinians was closer during talks between the two sides in 2008 than ever before, or since, Xinhua News has reported.

"We came closer, more than ever before, to completing an agreement of principles that would have ended the conflict between us and the Palestinians," Olmert said.

The revelation comes as heated debates continue to reverberate throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the wake of Al-Jazeera' s exposure this week of the 'Palestine Papers,' documents that supposedly detail the far-reaching compromises to Israel by the Palestinian leadership.

As part of the book's early promotion campaign, the Israeli Yediot Aharonot newspaper on Thursday published select excerpts from chapters in which Olmert recounts his meetings with Abbas, which began in mid-August 2006.

"We can and must reach peace. There are moments in which history requires us to make hard, heart-breaking decisions. I pray that the leadership which succeeded me will be courageous enough to make them," said the former premier, who is currently embroiled in legal proceedings for his alleged involvement in several corruption affairs.

Olmert agreed, according to the book, to an independent Palestinian state along the 1967 war cease-fire lines that would entail territorial swaps, as well as keeping Jewish neighborhoods built in Jerusalem in the aftermath of the war under Israeli sovereignty, while its Arab neighborhoods become part of the new Palestinian state.

Jerusalem's "holy basin," the area held sacred by all three monotheistic religions, would come under the trusteeship of five nations, Olmert reveals. As well, Israel would agree to allow a small number of Palestinians to reside within its borders based on "individual and humanitarian" considerations.

In a bid to further convince Abbas to seal a deal, Olmert suggested that a portion of the Dead Sea adjacent to the Palestinian state would come under its sovereignty, excluding Israeli hotels and mineral refining facilities located at its southern end. The Palestinian state were to be completely demilitarized, while a tunnel connecting the Gaza Strip and the West Bank would be supervised and controlled by the Palestinians.


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