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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Abbas admits no progress in peace talks with Israel |
| 2008-11-24 |
| Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas expressed frustration at US-backed Middle East peace talks on Sunday on the eve of a White House meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President George W. Bush, saying that not one issue has been resolved. He also pledged to call snap presidential and parliamentary elections if there is no agreement with the Islamist Hamas movement, which controls Gaza, to end the rift in Palestinian ranks. "So far we have not reached agreement on a single question - every issue remains up for discussion," Abbas told a key decision-making body of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) under whose auspices the year-old negotiations with Israel are being held. "Even if [US Secretary of State] Condoleezza Rice or someone speaking in her name says, even if [Israeli Foreign Minister] Tzipi Livni or someone speaking in her name says that there are agreements being prepared, it's not true," he told the PLO's central council. The Palestinian leader pointed to myriad Israeli failings to honor any of the undertakings it gave in November last year at the US-hosted conference which relaunched the negotiations. "Everyone knows that Israel has not for one moment halted the settlement construction, the building of the [separation] wall or the attacks, and nor has it allowed the opening of [Palestinian] institutions in [Occupied] Jerusalem," he complained. By contrast, he said the Palestinians "had made efforts which had produced results and brought security and stability to towns across the West Bank." |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 Condi's gone Abu Mazen, accept it---but you get to meet Hillary. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2008-11-24 07:19 |