French President Francois Hollande greets his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas at the Elysee Palace in Paris yesterday
Reuters/Paris
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said yesterday he was ready to hold a dialogue with Israel if it freed prisoners and rearmed his police, but there could be no full peace talks without a freeze on West Bank settlements.
“We recently told them that if Israel accepted to free prisoners and allow us to rearm the police then we would again sit at the same table as Netanyahu,” Abbas said, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“If Mr Netanyahu agrees ... then we will establish a dialogue, but that doesn’t mean a negotiation,” Abbas told reporters during a visit to Paris.
US-sponsored negotiations on the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel stalled in 2010 in a dispute over Israeli settlements in the occupied territory, swathes of which it has vowed to annex under any eventual accord.
The Palestinian leader reiterated his insistence on a total freeze on settlements, which most world powers consider illegal, saying it was wrong to describe this as a “precondition”.
Responding to Abbas’s remarks, Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev said in Jerusalem: “Israel remains ready for the immediate resumption of peace talks without any preconditions.”
Asked whether Israel planned any prisoner releases or arms handovers in the foreseeable future, Regev had no immediate comment.
Abbas was in Paris to firm up aid pledges from France and seek Hollande’s support for recognition of a future Palestinian state and for unity talks between Fatah and Hamas.
Making his first comments on the Middle East peace process since being elected president in May, Hollande said that everything had to be done to restart the long-stalled talks.
Hollande stopped short of offering to recognise a Palestinian state without a peace deal, but he said he hoped to accept an offer to visit the region.
“Today, we must do everything to facilitate the recognition of a Palestinian state via a negotiated process,” Hollande said. “Dialogue must start again and the sooner the better.”