Ramallah  - United State special Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell said Tuesday in Ramallah after meeting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that he hopes his peace efforts will reach a positive conclusion within the coming weeks.

Mitchell met Abbas for two-and-a-half hours after concluding two days of talks with Israeli officials. He had earlier met Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in Ramallah.

"We hope to bring this stage in our efforts to positive conclusion in the coming weeks," Mitchell told reporters after his meeting with Abbas.

"We had a very good meeting, as I did earlier this afternoon with (Israeli Premier Benjamin) Netanyahu," said Mitchell. "We have been asking all the parties to take responsibility for peace and to take action in order to conclude an encouraging context for the close resumption and early conclusion of negotiations."

Mitchell briefed Abbas on his meeting with Israeli officials, said chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat after the meeting. He said Mitchell was not able to get an Israeli commitment to freeze all settlement activities in the Palestinian territories.

Erekat reiterated the Palestinian position that there will be no meeting with Israeli officials or resumption of negotiations without a total Israeli freeze on all settlement activities, including so- called natural growth.

He said a three-way meeting with Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama in New York in two weeks was not discussed in the meeting between Abbas and Mitchell.

"We did not talk about the meeting," he said. "The issue is not meeting for the sake of meeting. There is a goal for the peace process and that is how to end this occupation."

Erekat said Abbas told Mitchell that there are obligations on Israel to stop settlement activities. "There are no compromises on settlements," he said.

"We are ready to meet our obligations and resume talks from where they stopped," said Erekat. "But Israel has to meet its obligations and until now it has not met any of its obligations in the road map."

Erekat said the Palestinians will continue to work with Mitchell and other US officials until they reach a definitive solution for the decades-old Middle East conflict.

Mitchell is expected to meet Netanyahu for the second time in two days Wednesday morning.  dpa