By NNN-KUNA,
Ramallah : President Mahmoud Abbas has announced that a national dialogue will be launched to activate the recent Yemeni peace initiative seeking an end to the separation of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
In the announcement aired over Palestine TV on Wednesday, Abbas said that he would engender regional and international contacts to garner all the support he could muster to get the initiative off the ground with the ultimate objective of lining up all Palestinians together to work for the establishment of an independent state for all the Palestinian people.
The PLO executive committee, he assured, would provide an environment conducive to productive dialogue with the Hamas movement and other entities, adding meawhile that it was incumbent on the international community to break the blockade on Gaza.
Affirming that he valued a just and equitable peace with Israel, he noted that building settlements, annexing Jerusalem, and erecting a separation wall would not be a realistic basis for lasting peace.
The Hamas movement, in the words by one its key leaders, Mahmoud al-Zahar, welcomed Abbas’ invitation for a dialogue but without pre-conditions and with an Arab embracement of it.
Commenting on what US Democratic candidate Barack Obama has said about Jerusalem to remain as the capital of Israel, Abbas expressed dismay at that pronouncement and reminded that the issue of Jerusalem figured high on the agenda of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
“We will not accept an independent Palestinian state without Jerusalem as its capital,” he stated.