[Asharq al-Aswat] US envoy George Mitchell headed to the Middle East on Tuesday to try to rescue peace talks as Paleostinian president Mahmud Abbas demanded the renewal of a moratorium on Israeli settlements.
| "Please be so kind as to go straight to Hell by the most efficient route. Thank you." (There are so many reasons no one will ever give me a country of my own to run.) |
The negotiations, relaunched on September 2 after months of tortuous shuttle diplomacy, were on the brink of collapse after a 10-month moratorium on the building of new settler homes in the West Bank expired on Sunday.
Abbas said he will not officially respond to the move until he meets with the Paleostinian leadership this week and Arab foreign ministers on October 4, but that settlements should be halted for the duration of the peace talks.
| Why? What did Israel get for the last moratorium? |
"We demand a moratorium for as long as there are negotiations, because for as long as there are negotiations there is hope," he told a French radio station on Tuesday during a visit to Paris.
"We don't want to stop these negotiations but if settlement building continues, we will be obliged to stop," Abbas said. He added that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "should understand that peace is more important than settlement building."
| It should be more important that demands, too. But there goes the Palestinian president, once against taking the opportunity to lose the opportunity. Thank you, President Obama. |
Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held talks by telephone late Monday that were described by State Department front man Philip Crowley as "very significant, very detailed, very direct." |