Palestinians Prepared To Declare Talks Dead
The executive committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) is expected to rule whether or not to continue the Jordan-mediated low-level peace talks with Israel in the next few days, Palestinian officials said on Saturday.
On Thursday, the time frame that the Palestinians have allowed for talks with Israel in Amman under Jordanian auspices expired, as sources associated with the Middle East Quartet – the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia – said last-minute efforts are underway to head off the talks’ collapse.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s representative to the Amman talks, Isaac Molho, met on Wednesday in the Jordanian capital for a fifth time with the head of the Palestinian negotiating team Saeb Erekat – but at this point no formula has been reached that would enable the talks to continue.
Erekat made it clear that because Israel has not presented its position on the issue of borders with a Palestinian state, from the Palestinians’ standpoint, the talks have ended.
Speaking on Friday, Wasel Abu Yousef, a member of the PLO’s top panel, said that the Palestinian leadership will decide on the future of the fledgling peace talk in the coming days, following what he called their “failure.”
For more, go to Haaretz.com
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