Israeli and Palestinian envoys were due back at the negotiating table on Tuesday in Washington after an initial 90-minute meeting marking the relaunch of long-stalled peace talks.

The two negotiating teams met late on Monday at the US State Department, where Secretary of State John Kerry hosted a dinner.

“It was a constructive and productive meeting between the parties.

They engaged in good faith and with seriousness of purpose,” a senior State Department official said. “We are looking forward to continuing the talks tomorrow morning.” The initial meetings to stake out a path for further talks come almost three years after negotiations broke off.

Kerry, who brokered the resumption of talks, said before the meeting on Monday, “If the leaders on both sides continue to show strong leadership and a willingness to make those tough choices and a willingness to reasonably compromise, then peace is possible.” The road ahead will be difficult, and Israeli and Palestinian leaders must seek “reasonable compromises on tough, complicated, emotional and symbolic issues,” he said.

“I know the negotiations are going to be tough,” Kerry said, “but I also know that the consequences of not trying could be worse.” US President Barack Obama called the talks a “promising step forward.” “The most difficult work of these negotiations is ahead, and I am hopeful that both the Israelis and Palestinians will approach these talks in good faith and with sustained focus and determination,” Obama said.

“The United States stands ready to support them throughout these negotiations, with the goal of achieving two states, living side by side in peace and security.” The US State Department on Sunday had extended an invitation to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to send envoys to Washington “to formally resume direct final status negotiations.” Israel sent Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and negotiator Yitzhak Molcho, while the Palestinians were represented by chief negotiator Saeb Erekat and Mohammad Shtayyeh, a member of the Palestinian ruling Fatah faction’s central committee.

Joining Kerry and the negotiating teams at Monday’s dinner were Martin Indyk, US special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, and his deputy Frank Lowenstein; Philip Gordon, White House coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa, and the Gulf region; and State Department deputy legal advisor Jonathan Schwartz.

Indyk, 62, was an advisor to former president Bill Clinton on the Middle East and twice ambassador to Israel, as well as an assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs.

“He knows what has worked, and he knows what hasn’t worked, and he knows how important it is to get this right,” Kerry said. “Ambassador Indyk is realistic. He understands that Israeli-Palestinian peace will not come easily and it will not happen overnight.”

Previous talks broke off in 2010 over Israel’s refusal to halt settlement-building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

A key Palestinian demand is that any future Palestinian state be based on the 1967 border that separated Israel from the West Bank on the eve of a Middle East war that same year. Israel captured the West Bank and Jerusalem during the war.

Israel considers all of Jerusalem its undivided and eternal capital. Abbas wants East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

Israel on Sunday approved the release of 104 Palestinian prisoners. Thousands of Palestinians are held in Israeli jails, including many who were involved in deadly attacks on Israelis.

Livni met earlier on Monday with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at UN headquarters before continuing to Washington.

“We are hopeful,” she said in New York. “We believe that this is in the mutual interest for Israel, for the Palestinians, the Arab world and the international community.”

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