Israeli Prime Minister- designate Benjamin Netanyahu is still engaged in talks with the Kadima party for a possible broad ruling coalition, local media reported Sunday.

The chair of the center-right Likud party and Tzipi Livni, chairwoman of the centrist Kadima, met in secret on Wednesday night, when the two renewed efforts to find a way for their parties to sit together in the next government, reported local daily The Jerusalem Post.

Although political sources indicated a "narrowing" of differences, gap remains on the power-sharing arrangement between the two. Livni, whose party won the most parliamentary seats in the February 10 general election, has conditioned her entry to Netanyahu's government on, among others, a premiership rotation.

Kadima officials recently claimed that Netanyahu has agreed to an "unequal" agreement, which would see him be prime minister for three years and Livni for a year and a half, yet sources close to Netanyahu said that no rotation proposal is even under consideration, according to another newspaper Ha'aretz.

The former prime minister, facing an April 3 deadline for his cabinet-making mission, is now waiting for Livni to decide whether to create a team to pursue official coalition talks, and more meetings between the two are likely, members of both parties were quoted as saying.

The latest development marked a turnabout from the antagonism manifested late last month, when Livni said that Kadima could not sit in Netanyahu's government, stressing that she did not think Netanyahu was committed to a two-states-for-two-peoples solution to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

The current foreign minister has reportedly demanded that should she continue with the portfolio, she must have complete diplomatic autonomy and control over negotiations with the Palestinians.

Without Kadima by his side, Netanyahu would likely have to form a narrow coalition with his rightist allies, which would augur ill for the already stalemated peace process as the right-wing parties traditionally hold hardline stances on the historic issue.

(Xinhua News Agency March 16, 2009)