WASHINGTON - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday named a former ambassador to Israel as the top envoy to negotiate the new round of talks between Israel and officials from the western-backed Palestinian Authority.

Just hours before Israeli and Palestinian negotiators were to resume talks frozen for three years, Kerry said Martin Indyk, who once worked for the extremist pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC, would take on the task of chief envoy to try to work out a peace deal.

Indyk was to join the start of the talks later Monday, at an iftar dinner to be hosted by Kerry, before a full day of negotiations with Israeli chief negotiator Tzipi Livni and her Palestinian counterpart Saeb Erakat.

In 1993, Indyk was named then-president Bill Clinton’s special assistant for the Middle East on the National Security Council.

Indyk served twice as US ambassador to Israel from 1995-1997 and from 2000-2001, during which time he participated in Clinton’s failed Camp David summit meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.