RAMALLAH: The Palestinians on Saturday insisted on a full Israeli settlement freeze before renewing peace efforts, putting a damper on a US call to revive talks with no preconditions.
Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said the international community should put pressure on Israel to completely halt settlement activity before the resumption of the peace process.
After a meeting with Yutaka Iimura, the special envoy of the Japanese government to the Middle East, Fayyad said the international community need to pressure Israel to “totally freeze settlement activity in the Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem and its surroundings, implement the requirements of the roadmap peace plan, halt the policy of eviction and demolition of houses and to lift the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip.”
“The implementation of these requirements is a basic criterion for the success of international efforts to revive the peace process and the two-state solution,” he said.
The prime minister’s remarks came a day after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Israelis and Palestinians to resume the peace talks without preconditions, in Washington’s latest bid to return the sides to the negotiations table.
On Friday Clinton held talks with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh and Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit in Washington in a bid to recruit Egypt to host a possible meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
“We are working with the Israelis, the (Palestinian Authority), and the Arab states to take the steps needed to relaunch the negotiations as soon as possible and without preconditions,” Clinton said.
Clinton backed the key Palestinian aim of creating a state along the borders that existed before the 1967 Israeli-Arab war, but said the lines would be modified through mutually agreed land swaps, presumably to account for some Israeli settlements that would remain.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat also demanded that Israel comply with its commitment under the 2003 peace roadmap, which calls for a “halt to all settlement activity including natural growth and Jerusalem.” He said negotiations should be picked up from the point they were left when they broke down in December 2008.
So far, there has been no reaction from the Israeli government.
Meanwhile, a top Fatah official on Saturday ruled out a meeting between Abbas and exiled Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal during the Palestinian president’s upcoming visit to Syria.
Jamal Mhaisen, a member of Fatah’s Central Committee, said in a press statement that Abbas will not meet Meshaal in his planned visit to Damascus this week.
“If Hamas had signed the reconciliation deal, there would have been meetings between the two sides,” Mhaisen added, referring to an Egyptian proposal to reconcile Hamas and Fatah.
