Abbas confirms visit to 'sister country' Iran
Palestinian leader tells Polish reporters he intends to visit the Islamic Republic, even though Tehran denied he was due to visit in October.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas confirmed on Sunday that he will soon visit "sister country" Iran, even though Tehran has denied such a visit would take place.
Speaking to Polish reporters in Ramallah, Abbas said that "the details of the visit haven't been coordinated with Iranian officials yet."
The PA president referred to Iran as "a neighboring, sister country," saying "Our relations with it were not good, but we have an embassy in Tehran, and therefore it recognizes us."
The embassy in Tehran used to serve as Israel's embassy, until the 1979 Islamic Revolution, following which it was handed to the Palestinians.
PLO Executive Committee member Ahmad Majdalani told Palestinian news agency Ma'an that the possible visit was raised in a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during a meeting in Tehran.
"Our relationship with Iran is an urgent necessity concerning international and regional developments," Majdalani told Ma'an.
"They talked about the bilateral relations and the desire to have proper relations between the states, particularly after the nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers," Abbas said. "What's important to us is that there is peace and stability and that the Middle East is demilitarized from nuclear weapons."
According to Ma'an, the two sides have reportedly discussed the formation of a joint committee for consultations on political issues, commerce and education exchanges.
Last week, Tehran denied reports on Abbas' October visit, with the Iran Parliament Speaker's Adviser for International Affairs, Hussein Sheikholeslam, telling a Hamas-affiliated website that the Palestinian Authority has "requested the visit more than once but we haven't accepted it yet; they have recently repeated their demand once again but we have not provided them with a positive response."
Sheikholeslam told the Al-Risala website that Tehran "diligently supports the resistance and its fighters," led by Hamas.
If it goes ahead, it would not be Abbas' first visit to Iran. In 2012, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad served as the president of the Islamic Republic, he met with Abbas in Tehran as part of the Non-Aligned Movement Summit. Ahead of the summit, Iran tried to cause a rift among the Palestinians by inviting Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh as a representative of the Palestinian people as well, but Haniyeh eventually did not attend the summit.
In his meeting with Polish journalists, Abbas also addressed the freeze in talks with Israel, saying "we want peace with Israel. Our hand is extended in peace."
He repeated previous Palestinian condition to returning to the negotiating table, saying that if Israel stopped construction in West Bank settlements, he was willing to immediately start talks.
On Sunday, Abbas resigned from the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) top leadership body, but did not resign as Palestinian president.
Abbas told journalists Sunday he and up to 10 others are submitting resignations from the PLO Executive Committee, in an effort to elect a new committee at a rare meeting of the Palestinians' parliament-in-exile next month.
The upcoming shakeup is seen as one of Abbas' recent efforts to sideline critics and potential rivals.
The PLO has atrophied since the 1990s, as power shifted to the Palestinian self-rule government headed by Abbas. Yet changes in the PLO leadership could help determine Abbas' eventual successor.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
