RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP)
The Palestinians will demand the return of all their Israeli-occupied land in peace talks and will not agree to a state with temporary borders, president Mahmud Abbas said on Wednesday.
In an interview with Palestinian television, Abbas outlined what the Palestinians will seek in talks with Israel after a U.S.-sponsored Middle East peace conference expected in November.
"This meeting must touch on the main questions, including borders, refugees, water, Jerusalem, settlements and security," he said.
"The Palestinian people must have a continuous and viable state within 1967 borders. The area of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip stands at 6,205 square kilometers (2,396 square miles) and we want these 6,205 square kilometers," he said. He said he would accept "border modifications here and there" but rejected any exchange of territory under any final peace deal. Israel wants to keep its major settlement blocks in the occupied West Bank, in exchange for giving the Palestinians equivalent amounts of land elsewhere. "We have rejected in the past and we reject now a state with temporary borders. It will lead us to an impasse that will last many, many years," Abbas said. The so-called roadmap for Middle East peace -- dormant since its launch in 2003 -- contained the option of creating a Palestinian state with temporary borders first, and determining the final borders later.Washington called the conference, whose exact date, location and participant list have not yet been announced, in the latest bid to jumpstart a peace process that has been dormant for nearly seven years. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will next week hold talks with Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on her seventh visit to the region this year. Ahead of the U.S. conference, Abbas and Olmert have held a series of one-to-one meetings, discussing the most intractable issues of their decades-old conflict. Earlier this week Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams began trying to hammer out a joint document ahead of the November meeting, with a view of starting negotiations after the conference.Olmert has come in for domestic criticism that he was moving too fast in his talks with Abbas, or that the Palestinian president -- whose control has been limited to the West Bank since Hamas violently seized control of Gaza in mid-June -- was too weak politically to implement any agreement reached. The premier, while seeking to calm the fears and silence the critics, has vowed to push on with the revived talks.
Israel granting residency to 5,000 Palestinians In a new gesture to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Israel said it will grant residency permits to 5,000 Palestinians who have been living in the West Bank on expired visitors' visas.The decision means an easier life for part of the 20,000 Palestinians, including some with U.S. citizenship, who entered the West Bank as visitors during the heady years of peacemaking in the 1990s but saw their visitors' permits expire. That left them with a difficult choice: leave the West Bank with no guarantee of returning, or remain illegally under constant fear of arrest.The residency permit gesture is meant to boost Abbas in his struggle with the Islamic Hamas ahead of the conference next month.Under partial peace accords, Israel has to sign off on the permits -- giving it the power to decide which visitors may stay in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel insisted on that power as an anti-terrorism measure.Palestinians who were abroad when Israel captured the territories in 1967 or who have lived abroad for many years have no residency rights. They must enter the West Bank with their foreign passports as tourists, even if they have long family histories or are married to local Palestinians.
Palestinians want all occupied land back: Abbas
Israel granting residency to 5,000 Palestinians
A U.S.-sponsored Middle East peace conference will take place in Nov. (File)
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP)
The Palestinians will demand the return of all their Israeli-occupied land in peace talks and will not agree to a state with temporary borders, president Mahmud Abbas said on Wednesday.
In an interview with Palestinian television, Abbas outlined what the Palestinians will seek in talks with Israel after a U.S.-sponsored Middle East peace conference expected in November.
"This meeting must touch on the main questions, including borders, refugees, water, Jerusalem, settlements and security," he said.
"The Palestinian people must have a continuous and viable state within 1967 borders. The area of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip stands at 6,205 square kilometers (2,396 square miles) and we want these 6,205 square kilometers," he said. He said he would accept "border modifications here and there" but rejected any exchange of territory under any final peace deal. Israel wants to keep its major settlement blocks in the occupied West Bank, in exchange for giving the Palestinians equivalent amounts of land elsewhere. "We have rejected in the past and we reject now a state with temporary borders. It will lead us to an impasse that will last many, many years," Abbas said. The so-called roadmap for Middle East peace -- dormant since its launch in 2003 -- contained the option of creating a Palestinian state with temporary borders first, and determining the final borders later.Washington called the conference, whose exact date, location and participant list have not yet been announced, in the latest bid to jumpstart a peace process that has been dormant for nearly seven years. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will next week hold talks with Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on her seventh visit to the region this year. Ahead of the U.S. conference, Abbas and Olmert have held a series of one-to-one meetings, discussing the most intractable issues of their decades-old conflict. Earlier this week Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams began trying to hammer out a joint document ahead of the November meeting, with a view of starting negotiations after the conference.Olmert has come in for domestic criticism that he was moving too fast in his talks with Abbas, or that the Palestinian president -- whose control has been limited to the West Bank since Hamas violently seized control of Gaza in mid-June -- was too weak politically to implement any agreement reached. The premier, while seeking to calm the fears and silence the critics, has vowed to push on with the revived talks.
Israel granting residency to 5,000 Palestinians In a new gesture to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Israel said it will grant residency permits to 5,000 Palestinians who have been living in the West Bank on expired visitors' visas.The decision means an easier life for part of the 20,000 Palestinians, including some with U.S. citizenship, who entered the West Bank as visitors during the heady years of peacemaking in the 1990s but saw their visitors' permits expire. That left them with a difficult choice: leave the West Bank with no guarantee of returning, or remain illegally under constant fear of arrest.The residency permit gesture is meant to boost Abbas in his struggle with the Islamic Hamas ahead of the conference next month.Under partial peace accords, Israel has to sign off on the permits -- giving it the power to decide which visitors may stay in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel insisted on that power as an anti-terrorism measure.Palestinians who were abroad when Israel captured the territories in 1967 or who have lived abroad for many years have no residency rights. They must enter the West Bank with their foreign passports as tourists, even if they have long family histories or are married to local Palestinians.
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