Abbas rejects interim accord with Israel

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (R) shakes hand with Chile's President Sebastian Pinera during a meeting as part of Pinera's visit in the region on March 5, 2011 in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Speaking to reporters on the Mount of Olives in east Jerusalem the day before, Pinera said Chile wanted to help the two sides work towards a peace agreement that would see both living within their own states with internationally-recognised borders. AFP PHOTO

What you need to know:

  • Leader demands a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders

Ramallah, Saturday

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas reiterated today his rejection of any interim accord with Israel for a Palestinian state with provisional borders.

“This project was already submitted to us and, if it is presented again, we will reject it again,” Abbas said at a news conference with visiting Chilean President Sebastian Pinera.

“The time has come for a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders to become, in September, a permanent member of the United Nations,” he said.

Sources close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have said he is due to deliver a key speech in May in Washington announcing a new diplomatic bid towards the Palestinians.

The initiative would stipulate a long-term “interim agreement” with the Palestinians, rather than negotiations, on a final settlement, Israeli media reported.

Direct peace talks between the two sides broke down last autumn over an intractable dispute about persistent Jewish settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank.

The Palestinians say they will not negotiate while Jewish settlers build on land they want for a future state, but Israel has refused to freeze construction, leaving the negotiations at a dead end.

The Palestinians have also embarked on a campaign to clinch international support for the recognition of an independent Palestinian state based on borders that existed before the 1967 Six-Day War.

During that conflict Israel seized the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as well as east Jerusalem — the mostly Arab part of the city now annexed by Israel that the Palestinians want as the capital of their future state. (AFP)