Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, described
Netanyahu's invitation as "nothing more than propaganda . . . Netanyahu's
invitation is meant to cover his practices in Jerusalem."
Netanyahu extended the invitation after a meeting with
visiting US Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell on Wednesday.
The US administration, which failed to bring the Palestinian
Authority and Israel to direct peace negotiations that stopped in December
2008, managed to convince the two sides to start first with the four-month
indirect proximity talks, focusing on issues of settlements, borders and
security, and then go for direct talks.
Israel Radio reported Wednesday that the US administration
"is trying to crystallize a compromise in which Israel keeps its partial
freeze of settlement construction in the West Bank while the Palestinians
unconditionally accept going for direct negotiations with Israel."
Abbas said during a meeting with six Israeli journalists in
his Ramallah office on Wednesday that originally he wanted to hear from
Netanyahu whether he was willing to accept the understandings agreed upon by
his predecessor, Ehud Olmert.
Israeli media said that Olmert proposed at the end of 2008
to return 93.5-to-93.7 percent of West Bank land to the Palestinians and to
handle the Jerusalem question under an international framework as his
"final offer." The Palestinian Authority rejected his offer.
When no answer from Netanyahu was forthcoming regarding the
Olmert offer, Abbas said at the briefing that he sent a message through
Mitchell saying that he would be satisfied with an answer on only two of the
issues: borders and security.
"Answers like these are necessary to see if we are
speaking the same language, and then it will be possible to continue. It is
preferable that direct talks do not explode after 10 minutes, and then who
knows when we will be able to renew negotiations again," Abbas said.
The Palestinian leader said he would be willing to engage in
direct negotiations with Netanyahu as soon as he received an answer. "How
can we go to direct negotiations when we don't know the agenda of the
negotiations?" he asked. "Is there an agreement to discuss the border
and security issues? We don't know."
"Regarding borders, we call for the establishment of a
Palestinian state along the 1967 border, with East Jerusalem as our capital,
and western Jerusalem your capital," he was quoted as saying.
Abbas
said that in principle, the Palestinians have agreed to alterations in the 1967
border as long as it was done at a one-to-one ratio.
