Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel would consider a new initiative raised by France to relaunch the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
"I heard the proposal brought by French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe," Netanyahu told ministers at the weekly cabinet session.
"We very much appreciate our French friends and I will respond to them after we have considered the matters," he said, according to a statement sent to Xinhua.
Netanyahu said Israel, while studying the French proposal, would bring up the option with the American interlocutors as well.
"The Americans also want to advance initiatives and we have our own thoughts as well. We will consider how the proposal fits in with other initiatives," the prime minister said, referring to recent talks with the U.S. President Barack Obama and his address before the U.S. Congress laying out Israel's stand on a possible peace deal.
The French foreign minister presented last week a peace plan, which envisions the 1967 lines as the borders between Israel and the future Palestinian state. The French initiative agrees mostly with a recent speech by Obama, but goes further to emphasize the security for the two states.
A spokesman for the Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said that Abbas had accepted the French initiative to resume the peace talks with Israel.
Netanyahu, however, cautioned on Sunday that Israel would not hold talks as long as Abbas' Fatah party remained in an accord with Hamas, which Israel views as a terror organization.
Israel maintains that the Islamist movement must accept conditions laid down by the Quartet, the European Union, the United Nations, the United States and Russia, before any resumption of negotiations can take place. The conditions includes renouncing violence, recognizing Israel's right to exist, and adhering to past agreements between the PNA and Israel.
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