FILE - In this Monday, Oct. 27, 2008 file photo, Dr. Ron Pundak, Director General of the Peres Center for Peace from 2001 to 2012, is photographed at the center in Tel Aviv, Israel. Pundak, 59, an Israeli academic who was instrumental in initiating peace talks with the Palestinians in the 1990s, has died after a long illness. Pundak helped initiate backdoor channels of communications with the Palestinians that paved the way to the 1993 Oslo Accords, which created the Palestinian Authority and set up self-rule areas for the Palestinians. (AP Photo/Tara Todras-Whitehill, File)