Abbas lays out terms with UN threat
PALESTINIAN Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has said he would send messages to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and world leaders defining the terms of reference and bases for resumption of direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
In a speech before Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo, Abbas warned that if Israel did not reply to his messages he would resume efforts to unilaterally seek United Nations recognition of a Palestinian state.
Abbas said the resumption of direct negotiations with Israel would be conditional on a full cessation of construction in settlements and east Jerusalem, Israeli acceptance of the two-state solution on the basis of the pre-1967 lines and the release of Palestinian prisoners and detainees – especially those who were imprisoned before the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993.
The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office responded to Abbas’s speech at the Arab League by issuing a statement saying he has “turned his back on peace”.
“Instead of entering into negotiations that will lead to an end to the conflict, Abu Mazen [Abbas] prefers to join up with the Hamas terrorist organisation, the same Hamas that is hugging Iran,” the statement read.
Abbas also told the Arab foreign ministers that in last month’s Israeli-Palestinian talks in Jordan, the Palestinians presented their views regarding borders and security, while Israel did not do anything.
But Israel, he charged, was refusing to freeze settlement construction, present maps and recognise the road map for peace.
Referring to last week’s Qatar-brokered reconciliation accord between Fatah and Hamas, Abbas said he would head a transitional government tasked with preparing for presidential and parliamentary elections and rebuilding the Gaza Strip.
He warned, however, that the elections would be called off if Israel did not allow the vote to take place in east Jerusalem. “We can not hold elections without east Jerusalem,” Abbas said.
HERB KEINON & KHALED ABU TOAMEH
THE JERUSALEM POST
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