Abbas demands new peace plan

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on Middle East power brokers on Friday to draft a new peace plan for the region that could help revive failed US-backed negotiations with Israel.

In a televised speech, Abbas said Palestinians "demand" that the Quartet comprising Washington, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations "draft a peace plan" based on UN Security Council resolutions that call for establishing a Palestinian state on land Israel captured in a 1967 war.

The Palestinian leader also said that the current peace process has turned into a means for managing the conflict rather than resolving it.

Abbas, speaking on the anniversary of the foundation of Palestinians' mainstream Fatah movement, reiterated a demand for Israel to halt settlement building, the issue over which negotiations launched anew in September foundered just several weeks later.

Palestinians have rejected an offer put by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week to move toward an interim peace deal rather than a final settlement, in order to try and bypass such sticky conflict issues as the future of Jerusalem, settlements and Palestinian refugees.

Western-backed Abbas said he expected Washington to do more to confront Israeli settlement building in the West Bank, part of land where Palestinians want to establish their state.

"We do not see any action or measures taken to confront the Israeli persistence with regard to settlements," Abbas said.

Abbas, now in Brazil to lay a cornerstone for a Palestinian embassy following that country's formal recognition of Palestinian statehood, has said he would seek further UN action if peace talks with Israel did not resume soon.

AFP contributed to the story

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