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Photo: EPA
Abbas
Photo: EPA

Abbas supports further negotiation at UN over draft resolution

'We will continue in our consultations with the brothers and friends through deliberations, which will take place in the United Nations,' Palestinian president tells leadership in Ramallah.

RAMALLAH - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Thursday he supports further negotiations over a draft resolution on Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank that was submitted to the UN Security Council for a possible vote.

 

 

The Palestinians have been pressing for some sort of action in the UN's most powerful body. Council member Jordan sponsored the resolution Wednesday, after a day of talks among Arab states. The resolution calls for Israeli forces to be withdrawn by the end of 2017 from territories captured during the 1967 Six-Day War.

 

Palestinian President Abbas at the UN General Assembly Hall (Photo: AP) (Photo: AP)
Palestinian President Abbas at the UN General Assembly Hall (Photo: AP)

 

The resolution "comes in the context of our political battle to liberate the land and end the occupation of the Palestinian state," Abbas told a Palestinian leadership meeting.

 

"We will continue in our consultations with the brothers and friends through deliberations, which will take place in the United Nations," he added.

 

Earlier, Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour said the resolution does not close the door on further negotiations on the issue, including with the United States. The US, as a permanent council member, often has vetoed measures targeting Israel.

 

As Abbas spoke in the West bank city of Ramallah, thousands of members of his Fatah party demonstrated against him in the Gaza Strip.

 

The protesters were supporters of Mohammed Dahlan, a former Fatah strongman in Gaza whom Abbas fired in a power struggle. They carried pro-Dahlan posters and lambasted Abbas for alleged corruption and supposed servility in the face of the continuing Israeli presence in the West Bank.

 

The rally was approved by Gaza's militant Hamas group - a rival of Fatah - in an apparent effort to keep up the pressure on Abbas in the coastal territory.

 

Also on Thursday, Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal, the top Roman Catholic cleric in the Holy Land, condemned violence on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in his annual Christmas message.

 


פרסום ראשון: 12.18.14, 15:50
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