Monday 20 December 2010

After two decades of peace talks, PA official admits peace process is entrapment, Abbas getting ready for another decade

[ 20/12/2010 - 11:03 AM ]

RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- After more than two decades of negotiations with the Israeli occupation, chief negotiator of the Palestinian authority Saeb Erekat acknowledged suddenly that the PA fell into the trap of the peace process.

"We have devoted ourselves to the negotiations over nearly 20 years, and here we are today walking into the trap of a process that changed nothing regarding the occupation," the French news agency AFP quoted Erekat as saying.

For his part, Nabil Shaath, one of the PA negotiators, said that the peace process went into a deep coma and considered the attempts made by US secretary of state Hillary Clinton to revive it "totally useless" at the present time.

Shaath told journalists in Beit Sahour town near Bethlehem that the process of negotiations with Israel lost its credibility and described as "ridiculous."

He also said he started feeling disgusted at the never-ending talks with Israel, which he said are attributed to the Israeli government's intransigent attitude and the US administration's political impotence.

In this regard, de facto president Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday renewed his readiness to swap Palestinian lands with Israel in the context of a peace agreement and called for dispatching foreign troops from NATO led by the US in the West Bank if a Palestinian state was declared.

Abbas made his blatant remarks during his meeting with Zionist activists from the Israel-Palestinian peace coalition. (Haartz - with dozens of Israeli lawmakers, ex-generals and peace activists, urging them to tell the Israeli public that he opposes violence and is committed to reaching a peace deal.)

"We want peace and the negotiations are the only way to achieve peace in the region," Abbas said. "Peace can be realized through the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on 1967 borders with east Jerusalem as its capital and with an agreed exchange of lands in the same proportion and value."

Abbas praised his meeting with the Zionist figures as an important opportunity that should be repeated, and affirmed that the meeting was approved by Fatah faction and its Palestinian liberation organization (PLO).

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