Abbas sticks by terms for talks, rules out violence

Tom Perry

Reuters

RAMALLAH, Occupied West Bank: President Mahmoud Abbas said on Tuesday Palestinians would only resume peace talks if Israel fully halted illegal settlement building in the occupied West Bank, but ruled out any return to violence. Addressing a meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) central council, which is expected to extend his term as president, Abbas dismissed Israel’s partial settlement freeze and said the Israelis did not want negotiations.

Abbas, who is under pressure from the United States and the European Union to resume talks that have been frozen for the past year, said he was not setting terms but simply reiterating Israel’s obligations under the “road map” agreement for talks.

“When Israel stops settlement activity for a specific period and when it recognizes the borders we are calling for, and these are the legal borders, there would be nothing to prevent us from going to negotiations,” Abbas told the PLO meeting in occupied Ramallah.

Expressing frustration over what he said was Israel’s failure to carry out its obligations, Abbas said: “Where do they want to take us? What is required of us? There is one thing I will not accept: a return to violence.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused the Palestinians of delaying talks. Abbas, who replaced the late Yasser Arafat as Palestinian leader in 2004, said Israel was simply deflecting the blame.

“It does not want negotiations,” he said.

The 10-month moratorium on illegal occupied West Bank settlement building announced by Israel last month does not include public buildings or some 3,000 already approved houses.

It does not apply to occupied East Jerusalem and areas in the West Bank which the Jewish state claims to have annexed in a move not recognized internationally. The Palestinians want occupied East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.

Israeli settlers have denounced orders to halt settlement expansion. An Israeli border policewoman was wounded on Tuesday in clashes with Jewish settlers protesting the moratorium on new building permits for settlers.

About 44 percent of the West Bank is effectively off-limits to Palestinian construction, with much of that area reserved for the Israeli military and settlers, a UN agency said on Tuesday.

This “directly contributes to the poor living conditions confronting many Palestinian residents of the West Bank,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a report.

“Palestinian construction is effectively prohibited in some 70 percent of Area C, or approximately 44 percent of the West Bank, in areas that have been largely designated for the use of Israeli settlements or the Israeli military,” OCHA said.

Unable to obtain permits, tens of thousands of Palestinians build illegally and, as a result, face the risk of demolition and displacement, it said.