Kerry in Mideast for Talks June 13-15

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will visit the Middle East on June 13-15 to discuss peace efforts with Israeli and Palestinian officials, Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki said on Monday.

But he said it was not clear whether Washington's top diplomat would visit Ramallah.

His remarks were made in an interview with Voice of Palestine radio a day after Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh told a news conference in Ramallah that Kerry would visit Amman "within days".

Judeh's announcement came after he held talks with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on U.S. efforts to revive the moribund peace process, and handed him a letter from King Abdullah II.

He did not say whether Kerry would travel to Jerusalem and Ramallah.

"Kerry is coming back to the region to meet the Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian leadership, so Judeh's visit was to coordinate," Malki said.

"The only confirmed thing is that Kerry will be back in the region on the 13th, 14th and 15th of this month. We still don't know if he will also visit Ramallah."

In Washington, Kerry told reporters on Monday that Israel and the Palestinians are "weighing the choices" they need to make to resume peace talks "very, very seriously".

He said he was open to the idea of returning to the region to help push the sides back to the negotiations stalled since 2010, but he did not confirm reports another trip was in the offing.

"I am confident that both sides are weighing the choices that they have in front of them very, very seriously. I'm absolutely confident about that," said Kerry.

"I think they need to have an opportunity to do that, and I will make a judgement at some point whether I need to go push a little bit or help that process. And I'm certainly willing to."

In the past four months, Kerry has been engaged in an intensive bout of shuttle diplomacy aimed at finding a way back to some form of direct negotiations. He last visited Jerusalem and Ramallah on May 23-24 for what was his fourth trip.

On Thursday, he spoke by phone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to express his concern over Israel's plans to advance the construction of more than 1,000 homes in annexed east Jerusalem and to discuss peace efforts.

Kerry phoned Abbas on Friday morning and again on Saturday, Palestinian officials said.

Despite the intensive diplomacy, Kerry had not yet presented any diplomatic initiative and was pushing the Palestinians to return to talks "without conditions," they said.

The Palestinian leadership wants a total freeze on Israeli settlement construction before it resumes peace talks, which it says must be based on the lines preceding the 1967 Six Day war in which Israel occupied the Palestinian territories.

Also on Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon accused Abbas, familiarly known as Abu Mazen, of seeking to avoid serious discussion.

"We are ready to move ahead on the peace process and it's Abu Mazen who's evading it by setting preconditions," he told a parliamentary committee.

"We are not prepared to pay so that he will come to the table."