CAIRO: The Palestinian Authority will not return to peace talks with Israel unless there is a freeze on settlement building that includes East Jerusalem, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Sunday.
Abbas said the Palestinians and Israel had received no official US request for a return to the talks which began in September but stopped three weeks later after Israel refused to extend a freeze on new settlements in the West Bank.
Asked if the Palestinian Authority would agree to resume the talks if a new settlement freeze did not include East Jerusalem, he said: “… if there is no complete halt to settlements in all of the Palestinian territories including Jerusalem, we will not accept”.
Abbas was speaking to reporters after meeting President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, which in 1979 became the first Arab state to make peace with Israel. Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit and intelligence chief Omar Suleiman were also present.
The USS had proposed an incentive package to Israel aimed at resuming stalled talks. Israel said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had promised it, free of charge, 20 F-35 stealth warplanes worth $3 billion. In return, Washington wanted Israel to freeze settlement building in the West Bank for 90 days.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition allies have demanded written confirmation from the United States that the building freeze it wants does not include occupied land in East Jerusalem. Israel calls East Jerusalem part of its capital — a status not recognised abroad — and Palestinians want it as the capital of a Palestinian state.
“For the past year we are seeing a phenomenon of refusal by Abu Mazen (Abbas) to commit to direct talks and we see him making various excuses in order not to (talk),” Israeli national security adviser Uzi Arad told Israeli television on Saturday.
