Abbas warns Israel

Settlements issue:

West Bank :Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Sunday Israel would be to blame for the failure of a new round of US-sponsored peace talks if it continues settlement expansion on occupied land.

The Palestinians have threatened to pull out of the face-to-face peace talks with Israel, due to begin on Thursday in Washington, unless it extends a moratorium on West Bank settlement building when it expires on Sept. 26.

“Israel alone will bear the responsibility of threatening these negotiations with collapse and failure if it continues settlement expansion in all its forms in all the Palestinian lands occupied since 1967,” Abbas said in a televised speech to the Palestinian people.

Abbas was referring to the West Bank and East Jerusalem, lands captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and where the number of Jewish settlers now stands at some 500,000. The Palestinians aim to found a state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Israel imposed a 10-month, partial freeze on settlement building in the West Bank last November.

The decision, taken under US pressure, was designed to coax the Palestinians back to peace talks. But the moratorium was deemed inadequate by Abbas because it excluded West Bank land annexed by Israel to Jerusalem municipality in 1967. The annexation has never won international recognition.

Ramallah, Monday, Reuters