Abbas: Israel derails Amman meetings

Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, accused Israel of derailing the Israeli-Palestinian meetings, which took place in Amman, in the framework of the Jordanian initiative to create suitable grounds for the resumption of direct negotiations suspended for 15 months. During his meeting with Irish Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore in Ramallah, Saturday, the official Palestinian news agency quoted Abbas saying, “ Israeli intransigence and refusing to give clear suggestions about borders and security, as requested by the Quartet, has took the meetings to a dead end.” The fifth meeting between the two sides ended last Wednesday, without achieving any significant progress, according to Palestinian officials. These series of meetings were proposed as not to seem as if the Palestinian side has given up the demand to the cessation of settlement before any direct talks. On the 21-point proposal detailing the Israeli position, Abbas told Russia Today, last week, “Now I get this 21-point proposal, and what are these 21 points? Are they just some headlines, or indeed a list of 21 issues that need to be addressed by our peoples? As of today, we only need to discuss and solve two issues: borders and security. Why would we want to add more issues to our agenda? Did he think it was some sort of a secret?” “But it is not news and it is not of any practical use either. It is not appropriate for a prime minister to submit this way a document that simply enumerates some issues such as borders, security, the Jewish state, etc., with no clear indication of what is actually expected of the other party,” he added. An Israeli official had said, earlier, "negotiator Yitzhak Molcho presented guiding principles defining the positions of Israel with regard to the issue of land during the meetings that took place in Amman.” Israel demands that, under any permanent peace agreement with the Palestinians, Jewish settlers living in the West Bank, in areas that Israel dubs as “Israeli lands”, should remain in their settlements that will be “part of Israel”.