Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Sunday evening remarked he is to meet Israeli counterpart Ehud Olmert October 27 and added the latter made positive remarks on several issues recently.
Abbas told a host of Palestinian columnists Olmert spoke of returning "almost all of the West Bank" and "almost all Jerusalem neighborhoods," adding, however, he was not sure what his counterpart meant exactly by "almost.
" The president further said there are no guarantees the negotiations would continue with a new US administration taking over. The Palestinian party is therefore to present several requests to the international quartet in Sharm El-Sheikh.
He reiterated an agreement was reached with both the US and the Israeli side that partial solutions would not suffice and that there should be no delay in dealing with any of the issues. The Palestinian side also stressed it would not stand for a state with "temporary" borders.
The six issues under discussion are rule over Jerusalem, borders, settlements, refugees, security, and water, but the focus is on aspects of daily life like closures and release of detainees rather than final status issues.
He also denied relaying a message to the Syrian president from the US President. He only informed Al-Assad of developments in the talks, he said.
The Palestinian president noted he also communicated with both the Israeli government and international community to stress that aggressions on Palestinian citizens by Jewish settlers have gone too far and that failure to check these suggests Israel is not sincere in its search for a settlement of the issue.
Front Page Features