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"From the very start we have been in favour of peace talks without preconditions and the objective is to start in the coming days, at the latest next week," Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon told public radio.
"It is a positive development. The Arabs also want to break the deadlock," Ayalon added of Saturday's Arab League decision to back a US plan to mediate indirect talks as a prelude to direct negotiations.
The key guarantee given by Washington to the Palestinians to persuade them to enter indirect talks with Israel was a halt to a controversial plan to build 1,600 new settler homes in annexed east Jerusalem, Arab League official Hisham Yusef said.
"We made a decision on March 2 to support the indirect talks, and then Israel made decisions we objected to. The Americans came back to us and said this will not happen," he said in Cairo.
"The assurances take us back to the status quo ante before March 2," Yusef added on Sunday, a day after the Arab League said it backed indirect talks with Israel after the Palestinians said they had received unspecified US guarantees.
Spain, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, welcomed the talks "with satisfaction," an official source said.
"The EU supports all efforts to ensure that negotiations begin as soon as possible. It works and will work in this context with all players in the region."
Israel has not publicly agreed to freeze construction in east Jerusalem, which it captured in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed in a move not recognised internationally.
"On the ground, we will not prevent life from continuing because a question of principle, even of morals, is involved," Ayalon said when asked if Israel would consider a freeze.
Amid a flurry of last-minute diplomacy ahead of the talks, US President Barack Obama's Middle East envoy George Mitchell is due back in the region for another round of shuttle diplomacy this week.
"President Abbas will meet with Mitchell on Friday," senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office has so far not officially announced a Mitchell meeting, but media reports say the US envoy will see Israeli officials on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Abbas is in the United Arab Emirates on a tour of Arab countries that will take him on Tuesday to Saudi Arabia and Egypt on Wednesday, his spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP.
In a newspaper interview on Sunday Abbas said that with the Arab League blessing and a similar endorsement expected from the Palestine Liberation Organisation's executive committee this week, the talks could now proceed.
"They will begin immediately and last for four months," he told the Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam, adding that he planned a visit to Washington this month to see Obama.
Netanyahu was meanwhile due in Egypt on Monday to consult President Hosni Mubarak on the latest peace moves.
Direct talks with the Palestinians collapsed when Israel launched a military offensive against the Islamist Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in December 2008.
In March, the Palestinians agreed to participate in US-mediated indirect talks for four months.
But those plans collapsed when Israel announced during a visit by US Vice President Joe Biden plans to build the new settler homes in the east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Ramat Shlomo.
That announcement infuriated both Washington and the international community.
Erakat said on Saturday that any Israeli construction in disputed east Jerusalem would halt the talks immediately. "If they build one unit out of the 1,600, we will not go to the talks," he said.
Israeli Science and Technology Minister Daniel Hershkowitz told reporters that such comments were not "an encouraging sign."
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"It is a positive development. The Arabs also want to break the deadlock," Ayalon added of Saturday's Arab League decision to back a US plan to mediate indirect talks as a prelude to direct negotiations.
The key guarantee given by Washington to the Palestinians to persuade them to enter indirect talks with Israel was a halt to a controversial plan to build 1,600 new settler homes in annexed east Jerusalem, Arab League official Hisham Yusef said.
"We made a decision on March 2 to support the indirect talks, and then Israel made decisions we objected to. The Americans came back to us and said this will not happen," he said in Cairo.
"The assurances take us back to the status quo ante before March 2," Yusef added on Sunday, a day after the Arab League said it backed indirect talks with Israel after the Palestinians said they had received unspecified US guarantees.
Spain, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, welcomed the talks "with satisfaction," an official source said.
"The EU supports all efforts to ensure that negotiations begin as soon as possible. It works and will work in this context with all players in the region."
Israel has not publicly agreed to freeze construction in east Jerusalem, which it captured in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed in a move not recognised internationally.
"On the ground, we will not prevent life from continuing because a question of principle, even of morals, is involved," Ayalon said when asked if Israel would consider a freeze.
Amid a flurry of last-minute diplomacy ahead of the talks, US President Barack Obama's Middle East envoy George Mitchell is due back in the region for another round of shuttle diplomacy this week.
"President Abbas will meet with Mitchell on Friday," senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office has so far not officially announced a Mitchell meeting, but media reports say the US envoy will see Israeli officials on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Abbas is in the United Arab Emirates on a tour of Arab countries that will take him on Tuesday to Saudi Arabia and Egypt on Wednesday, his spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP.
In a newspaper interview on Sunday Abbas said that with the Arab League blessing and a similar endorsement expected from the Palestine Liberation Organisation's executive committee this week, the talks could now proceed.
"They will begin immediately and last for four months," he told the Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam, adding that he planned a visit to Washington this month to see Obama.
Netanyahu was meanwhile due in Egypt on Monday to consult President Hosni Mubarak on the latest peace moves.
Direct talks with the Palestinians collapsed when Israel launched a military offensive against the Islamist Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in December 2008.
In March, the Palestinians agreed to participate in US-mediated indirect talks for four months.
But those plans collapsed when Israel announced during a visit by US Vice President Joe Biden plans to build the new settler homes in the east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Ramat Shlomo.
That announcement infuriated both Washington and the international community.
Erakat said on Saturday that any Israeli construction in disputed east Jerusalem would halt the talks immediately. "If they build one unit out of the 1,600, we will not go to the talks," he said.
Israeli Science and Technology Minister Daniel Hershkowitz told reporters that such comments were not "an encouraging sign."
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