RAMALLAH: Talks between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in Amman Tuesday are to be followed by “exploratory meetings” up until the end of the month, the Palestinians said.

The talks between Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat and Israeli envoy Yitzhak Molcho, sponsored by Jordan and the peacemaking Quartet, were the first direct discussions between the sides in more than 15 months.

A Palestinian official had suggested the meeting, which was described as positive but produced no breakthroughs, would be followed by a second round of talks Friday in Amman.

But Israeli media reported the next meeting was not expected before next week, and Nabil Abu Rudeina, spokesman for Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, said only that a series of meetings were expected to follow Tuesday’s talks.

“Exploratory meetings will be undertaken with the participation of our brothers in Jordan up until end of the month,” he said in a statement.

“Yesterday’s one came in the context of these exploratory meetings.

“The Palestinian side is ready to make all possible efforts towards a resumption of negotiations,” he said.

But he reiterated the Palestinian position that negotiations could not resume without a freeze on settlement construction and a framework for talks based on the lines that existed before the 1967 Middle East War.

He urged the Israeli government “to announce a settlement freeze, including in East Jerusalem, and accept the principle of a two-state solution on the 1967 borders, to give Jordan’s efforts to resume negotiations a chance.”

Tuesday’s meeting came in the context of efforts by the Quartet, made up of the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia, to kick-start talks that ground to a halt shortly after they began in September 2010.

The group has called on both sides to present comprehensive proposals on borders and security before Jan. 26, with an eye to resuming direct talks shortly afterward.

However, there was little optimism about Tuesday’s meeting on either side, with the Palestinians eager to insist that the talks were not an official resumption of negotiations.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, who hosted the Amman meeting, tried to temper expectations.

“The two sides expressed their commitment to a two-state solution. We do not want to raise the level of expectations, but at the same time we do not want to minimize the importance of this meeting,” he said Tuesday.

“The Palestinians submitted a paper on borders and security. The Israeli side received it, promising to study it and respond,” he said.

Jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti has said Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts are dead and called for mass “popular resistance” against Israeli occupation, in a letter penned from prison.

The letter was published Wednesday, a day after Palestinian and Israeli negotiators held their first face-to-face meeting in more than 15 months in the Jordanian capital.

“The peace process has failed, it’s finished, it’s not worth desperately trying to resuscitate a corpse,” he wrote in the letter published in the Palestinian newspapers.

“Consider 2012 as the year of massive peaceful popular resistance against colonialism, aggression, the Judaization of Jerusalem, the blockade and roadblocks,” wrote Barghouti, who is currently serving several life sentences for involvement in anti-Israeli attacks.

In August, Barghouti had told AFP in an interview conducted through his lawyer, that he was fully supportive of a Palestinian bid for a full United Nations membership while also encouraging mass protests against the Israeli occupation.

An influential leader with widespread support among the Palestinian public, Barghouti is known for being a lifelong activist who supported the Oslo peace process in the 1990s.

But Israelis accuse him of masterminding the Second Intifada, or Palestinian uprising, that erupted in 2000.

He was arrested in 2002 and two years later, sentenced to five life terms for murder for his role in several deadly anti-Israeli attacks.

He has since said he never supported attacks on civilians inside Israel and in recent years, has thrown his support behind peaceful resistance.