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Abbas tells Netanyahu: End occupation, make peace

Netanyahu set to travel to UN in New York, meet Obama at White House, as Palestinians poised to demand timetable for peace talks, Israeli withdrawal from West Bank.

"Prime Minister Netanyahu: End the occupation, make peace," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Monday ahead of the UN General Assembly, AFP reported.

 

 

Prime Minister Netanyahu is set to travel to the UN as well, where he will deliver a speech in the general assembly, and then meet with US President Obama to discuss the Islamic State terror group.

 

Abbas is expected to present a new timetable for peace talks with Israel and demand the4 UN commit Israel to an eventual withdrawal from the West Bank.

 

Speaking at the Cooper Union hall, Abbas said: "The international community has the responsibility to protect our people, living under the terror of settlers, an occupying army," AFP reported.

 

"We cannot understand how the Israeli government can be so misguided as to fail to understand that the indiscriminate bombing of Gaza that killed thousands of women and children only sowed more hate," Abbas reportedly said, according to AFP.

 

"This week I will propose to the United Nations a new timetable for peace talks," Abbas said, AFP reported.

 

In an interview with Palestinian TV last month, Abbas said it should only take "half an hour or an hour" to delineate the borders of a Palestinian state, since the United States agreed they should be based on the 1967 borders that existed before the war in which Israel captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

 

"There's either a political solution or there isn't," he said. "But going here and there, up and down, talking and not talking - it's been 20 years and nothing has happened."

 

If there is no agreement on borders in coming months - at least by the end of the year - Abbas said he would have no choice but to push ahead with unilateral statehood moves, a threat he has made before and carried out incrementally.

 

Offering a possible glimpse at what the Palestinians hope the timetable and talks will include, Mahmoud al-Habash, considered a close Abbas affiliate, said the Palestinian president hopes to discuss the core issues of the conflict, first and foremost the borders of the Palestinian state, which will be at the heart of talks during their first three months.

 

The remaining six months will be dedicated to the issues of refugees, the status of Jerusalem, settlements, security arrangements and water.

 

During talks, Abbas will also demand a settlement freeze and the release of the fourth tranche of Palestinian prisoners which Israel promised to but failed release, citing lack of progress in the last round of peace talks which ended uneventfully in April.

 

Reiterating a claim being heard more and more as of late by Palestinians, Habash also claimed that should Israel drag its feet, the Palestinians will put an international legal process against Israel into motion. Recently, Palestinian officlas have said that should Israel fail to commit to any form of timetable for talks, the Palestinians will petition the UN Security Council and file a suit against Israel at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

 


פרסום ראשון: 09.23.14, 09:54
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