Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Peace Talks Have Plenty of Time Says Abbas

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the new peace talks with Israel have plenty of time to bear fruit.

Abbas told the German news service Deutche Welle that the peace talks that restarted in July after a hiatus of several years have not reached a dead end, as some have claimed in recent weeks.

“We’re still at the beginning of the road,” he said during the interview on Saturday. “We have enough time to continue to examine the main and tough issues.”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has said the talks should last about nine months.

Abbas also said during his visit to Germany that any peace deal will be put up for referendum, and that Jerusalem should be the shared capital of both the Jewish and Palestinian states. He also hinted that the negotiations are based on the pre-1967 borders.

Also Saturday, the Hamas prime minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, called for an end to the division between the Palestinian leaderships in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in order to better negotiate an agreement with Israel.

“Let’s have one government, one parliament and one president,” Haniyeh said, according to Reuters.

He also called for a national strategy that includes “armed struggle, popular uprising and political, diplomatic and media battles.”

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.