JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has told Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that Israel will not allow the return of any Palestinian refugees as part of a future statehood deal, Olmert's office said on Thursday. The rare official statement was issued in response to reports Olmert proposed absorbing 2,000 refugees per year for 10 years as part of an agreement to establish a Palestinian state in most of the occupied West Bank and all of the Gaza Strip."The prime minister never offered to absorb 20,000 refugees in Israel. The prime minister again reiterates that under any future agreement, there will not be any return of Palestinian refugees to Israel in any number," Olmert's office said.
Nabil Abu Rdainah, an aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said Olmert's stance on refugees was unacceptable.
Leaks on this and other aspects of peace talks, such as an Israeli proposal to postpone discussion on Jerusalem, were designed to convince the world that Palestinians would be to blame for any failure of negotiations, he told Reuters. He said a final settlement must provide for a Palestinian state in all of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including Arab East Jerusalem, and a "just solution for the issue of refugees".
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Some 700,000 people, half the Arab population of Palestine in May 1948,