Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said that negotiating teams would begin tackling core issues, including borders, Israeli settlements, Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees, at their meeting with the Israelis on Monday.

Abbas delivered the three tracks on the road map in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

The first track is the final stage issues, the second track is to implement the first article on the road map.　The third track is the economic and security issues in the West Bank.　We don't want to, and we are not seeking to, implement the road map or the final stage issues only but all tracks must go on together side by side.

He added that teams headed by ex-Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni will begin discussion on the final stage issues.

Israeli settlements are high on the Palestinian agenda. They consider all the settlements, not just the unauthorised outposts, to be illegal encroachment on their land.

Abbas has said that negotiations could not move ahead while settlement activities were ongoing.

Settlers started putting up outposts across the West Bank after Israel reached its initial peace accords with the Palestinians in the early 1990s.

According to the anti-settlement Peace Now movement, about 400 Israelis live in outposts in addition to about 270,000 who live in more than 120 authorised settlements.