Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas set September as a deadline for the “Peace Talks” to be renewed, or else “we will go to UN”.
Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas set September as a deadline for the “Peace Talks” to be renewed, or else “we will go to UN”.“Our first choice is negotiations, but if there is no progress before September we will go to the United Nations," Abbas told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Abbas's comments, on Wednesday, came a day after a major speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
PA chief slammed Netanyahu's speech to the US Congress on Tuesday, saying it was devoid of any new incentive to restart peace talks.
He added that Netanyahu's speech only served to add obstacles on the road to “peace”.
"We listened carefully to Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech and... it contained many errors and distortions and was a long way from the peace process".
On Tuesday, Netanyahu said he was willing to make "painful compromises" for “peace”.
However he ruled out a division of Jerusalem, the return of Palestinian refugees, and the possibility of using the borders that existed before 1967 as a basis for peace negotiations.
In a key policy speech just days earlier, US President Barack Obama had called for new talks based on the armistice lines in place before the 1967 Six Day War.
Thursday’s speech created tensions between the two allies, US and the Zionist entity.
Netanyahu used the trip to reject the 1967 lines as "indefensible" and insist that Israel would never accept them as a basis for negotiations.
"He didn't say anything that can be interpreted as positive," said Abbas, accusing Netanyahu of preempting talks by laying out his own solutions to final status questions.
"There is an end-point for these negotiations, meaning they will not continue forever. We have to specify a timeframe and a framework... including all the final status issues: borders, security, Jerusalem, settlements, refugees, water," he said.
"We do not accept that solutions to these issues will be presented before negotiations happen, which is what. Netanyahu did," Abbas added.
