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Abbas says not one issue resolved in Mideast peace talks

By Nasser Abu Bakr
Yahoo News
23.11.08
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081123/wl_mideast_afp/mideastconflictpalestinian




RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) – Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas hit out at US-backed Middle East peace talks on Sunday on the eve of a White House meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President George W. Bush, saying that not one issue has been resolved.

He also pledged to call snap presidential and parliamentary elections in the New Year if there is no agreement with the Islamist Hamas movement which controls Gaza to end the rift in Palestinian ranks.

`So far we have not reached agreement on a single question -- every issue remains up for discussion,` Abbas told a key decision-making body of the Palestine Liberation Organisation under whose auspices the year-old negotiations with Israel are being held.

`Even if (US Secretary of State) Condoleezza Rice or someone speaking in her name says, even if (Israeli Foreign Minister) Tzipi Livni or someone speaking in her name says that there are agreements being prepared, it`s not true,` he told the PLO Central Council.

The Palestinian leader accused Israel of failing to honour any of the undertakings it gave in November last year at the US-hosted conference which relaunched the negotiations.

`Everyone knows that Israel has not for one moment halted the settlement construction, the building of the (separation) wall or the attacks, and nor has it allowed the opening of (Palestinian) institutions in (Arab east) Jerusalem,` he complained.

By contrast, he said the Palestinians `had made efforts which had produced results and brought security and stability to towns across the West Bank.`

Abbas`s comments came as the outgoing Israeli premier arrived in the United States for talks in which the slow-moving peace process is expected to take a back seat to Israeli concerns about Iran.

The Palestinian president stressed that he remains committed to Egyptian-brokered reconciliation talks with Hamas, which the Islamists walked out of earlier this month accusing his security forces of rounding up their supporters in the West Bank.

But he warned that if the talks fail to bear fruit he will call snap elections in the New Year.

`If the dialogue does not succeed, then at the start of next year we will issue a presidential decree calling parliamentary and presidential elections,` Abbas said.

It was not immediately clear what powers Abbas, who is also PLO chairman, would use to dissolve parliament early. The Palestinian basic law does not give him that right as president of the Palestinian Authority, something that Hamas was quick to seize on.

`The law does not give any authority to the president on parliament and nobody can dissolve it before` elections are due in 2010, a spokesman for the Hamas administration in Gaza, Taher al-Nunu, told AFP.

`We hope that the dialogue will succeed and that the president`s office will create a conducive atmosphere by freeing the prisoners in the West Bank,` he added.

Abbas`s own term of office expires on January 8 and the Islamists had threatened to stop recognising his authority from the following day.

Abbas read out to the PLO Central Council a draft agreement based on an Egyptian negotiating text which he said should serve as the basis for a new round of talks with Hamas.

The draft provides for the `formation of a provisional government that is accepted by all the factions and which respects the programme of the PLO.`

The latter is a potential stumbling block for Hamas, which is not a member of the PLO and has never signed up to its acceptance of a two-state solution.

The draft also provides for `reform of the security forces on a professional and non-partisan basis,` another key issue between Abbas and Hamas, which accuses him of stacking the security forces with his own loyalists.

In a security assessment which is to be submitted to the Israeli cabinet next month, defence chiefs urge ministers to avoid fresh Palestinian elections at all costs because of the risks of a new Hamas victory, the Haaretz newspaper reported.

The assessment recommends `preventing elections in the Palestinian Authority, even at the cost of a confrontation with the United States and the international community,` the paper said.



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