CAIRO, 2 December 2004 — Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said in comments published yesterday a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians was possible in 2005 and talks on a final settlement should begin straightaway. Abbas, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization and Fatah’s candidate to succeed Yasser Arafat, called on Israel to take confidence-building steps including a prisoner release and a halt to settlement construction.
“If there are good intentions, let us start now, without prejudicing the road map, with dealing with issues of the final period so we achieve the settlement as scheduled in 2005,” Abbas said in an interview with Egyptian magazine Almussawar. “I think that is possible and not difficult,” he said.
The road map is a Middle East peace plan, backed by the quartet of the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union, which aims to set up a Palestinian state and reach a final resolution to the conflict in 2005.
“We have no objection to parallel official negotiations, or non-official, in which we discuss the issues of the final settlement from now, either with the sponsorship of the quartet or with the sponsorship of another state,” Abbas, also called Abu Mazen, said.
Final status issues include the borders of a Palestinian state, the status of Palestinian refugees, Israeli settlements and Jerusalem, which Palestinians want as their capital but Israel says is part of their indivisible capital.
US President George W. Bush said this month he hoped to achieve the establishment of the Palestinian state during his second term, which ends in 2009. Abbas said US Secretary of State Colin Powell had told him Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had begun to speak positively about the road map and the quartet.
“But until now, no direct or defined statement has reached us from the Israeli side,” he said.
The peace plan has been left in tatters by Israeli-Palestinian violence but the international community is pushing both sides to renew negotiations following Arafat’s death last month.
Abbas said he was committed to Palestinian demands for a final agreement, including negotiating the right of return for Palestinian refugees that he said “does not mean we want to change Israel’s demographic structure.”
Meanwhile, a group of visiting US senators said yesterday they saw a “historic opportunity” to make progress in the Middle East peace process and advance toward the creation of a Palestinian state.
Sen. Joseph Biden, a frequent visitor to Israel, told reporters he felt “a sense of serious change, a historic opportunity... a possible move toward the roadmap and a two-state solution that didn’t exist before.”
He and another three senators met with both the Israeli and Palestinian leadership during a two-day visit to Jerusalem and the West Bank town of Ramallah.
“It will be extremely difficult and the United States must play a significant role,” added Biden, who is the ranking Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee.
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein of the Democrat party was similarly optimistic and said she hoped “my government will be much more forceful in bringing the two sides together.
“It’s very clear that the (Palestinian) January elections... are in the interest of us all — the Palestinians, Israelis and the world,” said Republican Chuck Hagel, also a member of the Senate foreign relations committee.
“If Abu Mazen is elected by his people, he will do everything to facilitate putting road map back on track,” he added.
