By Xinhua,
Ramallah : US Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell is interested in making peace in the whole region rather than in just the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Saturday.
In his second tour since his appointment, Mitchell met Israeli leaders Thursday and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his premier Salam Fayyad Friday.
“Mitchell emphasized Obama’s commitment to the two-state solution” and the US president “will save no effort to achieve this on the ground”, Erekat said.
Mitchell’s Mideast tour comes at a time the Israelis and the Palestinians were busy in their internal politics. While Israel’s Likud party chief Benjamin Netanyahu trying hard to form a coalition, Hamas and Fatah movements of Palestine have launched a reconciliation dialogue in Cairo with an aim at forming a unity government.
“We have stressed before Mitchell that any upcoming Israeli government must accept the two-state solution, the peace deals and lifting the siege in order to be our peace partner,” Erekat stressed.
Erekat renewed that the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) will not continue peace talks with Israel if the coming Israeli government rejected the regional peace treaties, continued the settlement constructions in the West Bank and the sanctions on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.