Israel's Barak to meet U.S. envoy Mitchell next week

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak will fly to London Sunday for a meeting with U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell, an Israeli official said on Friday.

The meeting between Barak and Mitchell, U.S. President Barack Obama's Middle East envoy, will be their second in a few days after they held meetings in New York in a bid to narrow the division with Washington over the settlement issue.

"Defense Minister Barak will leave Sunday night for a meeting Monday with U.S. peace envoy George Mitchell and will possibly have other meetings," the Israeli official said in a statement.

After their meeting, Barak said Wednesday that Israel would consider a limited moratorium on new construction in Jewish settlements, linking the step to U.S. efforts to bring Arab states into a broad peace process.

The offer, which Barak made in a Fox News interview, fell short of Washington's call for a total halt to building in settlements in the occupied West Bank, a demand that has opened the most serious rift in U.S.-Israeli relations in a decade.

Barak said a construction freeze was "part of a much wider issue, whether together with the United States and our Palestinian and Arab neighbors, we can launch an original peace initiative to be led by the president of the United States."

(Writing by Ori Lewis; editing by Tim Pearce)