US Secretary of State John Kerry is heading back to the Middle East for talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, as peace talks hit a critical point.
The State Department said Kerry will travel to Israel and the Palestinian territories on Monday amid a flurry of diplomatic activity by American mediators, who have been holding urgent talks with the two sides in hopes of salvaging the troubled negotiations and getting them to extend the talks beyond a current late-April deadline.
With the parties unable to agree on the terms of a promised Israeli prisoner release, the negotiations risk collapse in the coming weeks.
Kerry is currently in Paris, where he met Sunday with Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, about the Ukraine crisis.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/31/john-kerry-middle-east-peace-talks
