Jerusalem – (IINA)January 14, 2008 – Israeli and Palestinian negotiators will begin discussions on what are regarded as the core issues in the peace process when they meet today. These include the status of Jerusalem, the borders of a Palestinian state, Jewish settlements in the West Bank, refugees, security and water resources. The negotiations will be led by Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and former Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei. During a speech in the West Bank city of Ramallah yesterday, Abbas said the Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams would begin discussion of the core “final stage issues” in the peace process at their meeting today.
“If we reach an agreement on all these issues, then we can say that we have reached a final agreement,” he said, adding that any peace treaty would have to resolve the disputes over all issues. Abbas added that both sides would at the same time have to implement the first phase of the “road map” formulated by the Middle East Quartet in 2003, which suggests how a final settlement might be approached, and resolve economic and security issues in the West Bank, according to BBC. The first phase of the road map requires: Both sides to issue statements supporting the two-state solution, the Palestinians to end violence, act against “all those engaged in terror”, draw up a constitution and hold elections, the Israelis to stop settlement building activities and act with military restraint. A spokesman for the Israeli government, Mark Regev, also confirmed the negotiating teams would meet today, and that they had received a mandate to discuss the core issues.
Prospects for a comprehensive settlement were given fresh impetus by the peace conference at Annapolis in November, after which Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert agreed to restart talks after seven years. US President George W Bush, who visited Israel and the West Bank last week, has said Israel and the Palestinians could sign a peace treaty within a year. “I believe it’s going to happen, that there will be a signed peace treaty by the time I leave office,” he told reporters in Ramallah on Thursday. In his speech, Abbas said he had warned the president that the Palestinians could not move ahead in the negotiations while Jewish settlements continued to be built in the West Bank. “We can’t have negotiations while they are building houses all over,” he added.
The Palestinian leader also said he was willing to restart talks with Hamas, if it relinquished control of the Gaza Strip. Hamas ousted Abbas’s Fatah movement from the coastal territory in June following a week of violent clashes. “I am ready to negotiate with Hamas even if the United States does not accept it,” he said. “Such a dialogue is very important.” A Hamas statement denounced Abbas’s speech as “full of lies and fabrications.”
Meanwhile, two Palestinian fighters died in an Israeli strike in Gaza yesterday. The vehicle in which the two men were traveling was struck by a missile fired by the Israeli Air Force as they drove through the Shati refugee camp near Gaza City. The Israeli military said both the men had been involved in attacks on Israel. One of the men has been named as Nidal Amudi, who was a senior member of the AlAqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, a group linked to the Fatah movement of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
HA/IINA
14 Jan 2008