Washington, Ramadan 14, 1434, Jul 23, 2013, SPA - The White House Monday commended U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and all parties involved in agreeing to renew Middle East peace talks. “Last Friday, Secretary Kerry did announce an important first step in the process of bringing Israelis and Palestinians back together for direct talks, and we are working on a date for the parties to come to Washington in the coming weeks to move that process along,” White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters. “And we commend Secretary Kerry and all the parties involved in making the progress that has been made.” The White House spokesman described U.S. optimism about the agreement as “very cautious” due to the difficulty of the challenge. “The imperative for trying to resolve it remains as powerful today as it has for the last many years as successive leaders of the Palestinians and the Israelis and successive administrations here and the United States as well as our partners and allies around the world and region have engaged in the effort to try to bring about negotiations that produce a lasting agreement. There’s no question it’s hard, and you won’t hear from me anything but an acknowledgement of that,” Carney said. --SPA 11:41 LOCAL TIME 08:41 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/1131599