Kerry's visit to Mideast to salvage peace talks

US Secretary of State John Kerry will arrive in Israel late Tuesday in an effort to prevent the peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians from disintegrating. Recent tensions, prompted by the Israeli decision to build more settlements in the West bank and Jerusalem, have led to the visit by Kerry. Secretary Kerry affirmed that any problem could be resolved, saying that he was "optimistic" about going forward in the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. The Palestinians and Israelis exchanged blame over who was disrupting the peace talks with the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas saying that so far these talks did not yield any results. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also blamed Palestinians for creating non-existing problems, indicating that Israel has done its part by releasing Palestinian prisoners. He also said that Israel went into the negotiations with no promise to halt settlement expansion.