Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said
Sunday that the Palestinian Authority cannot negotiate with Israel unless
it halts all settlement expansions.
Abbas, who was responding to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's call
for the immediate resumption of the peace talks, added that the US and the European Union were making considerable efforts to resume the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
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| Netanyahu urges Abbas to meet him in Beersheba / Roni Sofer |
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Prime minister uses special cabinet meeting in southern city to call on Arab leaders to cooperate with Israel. 'I would like to offer the Palestinian Authority chairman to meet with me soon anywhere in the country,' he says |
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Abbas, who made the comments during a joint press conference in Ramallah with his Romanian counterpart Traian Basescu, also called on Israel to endorse the two-states for
two peoples paradigm and halt all settlement construction ahead of negotiations on a permanent agreement.
According to the PA leader such an agreement would include resolving issues related to Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees, water, borders, security and prisoners. Abbas further demanded that Israel live up to its obligations as specified by the US-backed Road Map for peace.
Earlier Sunday, Netanyahu urged Abbas to meet with him in Beersheba, 30 years after the meeting between Menachem Begin and
Anwar Sadat in the southern city in May 1979, which led to a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt.
During the press conference in Ramallah, Abbas also addressed the Fatah-
Hamas reconciliation
efforts: "We do not want our internal differences to serve as an excuse for others," he said, referring to Israel.
Basescu told the reporters that his country backed Abbas' policy.
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