RAMALLAH (West Bank), Jan 14: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has rejected any temporary solution to the Middle East conflict as visiting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pledged a renewed US push for peace.
Mr Abbas said at a joint press conference with Ms Rice after the two met in Ramallah on Sunday that he “emphasised our refusal to any temporary solution because we do not believe that this would be a viable solution.”
“What we need is active movement from all international parties… to achieve a durable and continuing peace… so that the region and the people enjoy peace and security.”
His talks with Ms Rice followed a series of meetings on Saturday between the top US diplomat and Israeli officials on how to kick start the Middle East peace roadmap which aims for the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who met Ms Rice on Saturday, last month floated a peace plan that envisaged a Palestinian state with temporary borders before a final settlement is reached.
Ms Rice, on her third visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories in four months, said the international roadmap should be accelerated, but did not provide any specific steps to reviving the blueprint that has remained largely untouched since its launch nearly four years ago.
“The US is deeply committed to find ways to accelerate progress on the roadmap,” Ms Rice said alongside Abbas.
“The US is absolutely committed to helping find a solution” and to building on what she called “the momentum currently in Israeli-Palestinian relations to build on a political horizon.”
Ms Rice defended recent media reports that Washington would provide the Abbas-led Palestinian Authority with more than 80 million dollars aimed at training its security forces.
“The American contribution is part of an international effort to train Palestinian forces,” she said.
On the eve of Rice’s visit, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya accused Washington and its top ally Israel of pushing Palestinians toward civil war.
Mr Abbas said he hoped Ms Rice’s visit be “the beginning of negotiations that will lead to a halt of the war in our region and to the establishment of a Palestinian state.”
He also said his administration was committed to ending fierce factional fighting in Gaza, which has killed more than 30 people in the last month.
“We will exert our utmost efforts to impose law and order and to boost the legal security forces,” he said.
Mr Abbas also reiterated that if talks with Hamas over forming a national unity government failed to bear fruit, “we will go back to the people of Palestine to hold early legislative and presidential elections.”
His call on December 16, for early elections was rejected by Hamas and triggered weeks of fighting between supporters of the Islamist movement and their Fatah rivals.—AFP
