The newly elected Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, on Monday night said the Palestinians are ”ready for peace” and he is eager to resume negotiations with Israel abandoned four years ago.
On his first day in office, Abbas said: ”We extend our hands to our neighbours. We are ready for peace, peace based on justice. We hope that their response will be positive.”
He called for a resumption of peace talks based on the road map, a plan presented two years ago by the United Nations, the US, the EU and Russia and accepted but never implemented by the Palestinians and Israel.
Abbas, who, according to official figures published on Monday, won 62,3% of the vote on Sunday, was embraced by world leaders as offering the best chance for peace of recent years. British Prime Minister Tony Blair telephoned Abbas to congratulate him.
An Israeli official said the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, who treated his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, as a pariah, was planning to phone to Abbas on Monday night. The two would discuss when best to meet, the official said.
Sharon on Monday suggested renewal of cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian security forces, which ended at the height of the Palestinian uprising.
He also proposed opening dialogue with the Palestinians on his planned withdrawal of Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers from Gaza in the summer.
But there is no sign that he favours an early resumption of negotiations on a final peace settlement. Other comments by Sharon on Monday suggested that Abbas’s honeymoon period could be short-lived. Sharon said he expected the Palestinian leader to act quickly to stop rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli targets, mainly by the Islamist militant group Hamas.
Sharon, in comments made to the former US presidential candidate, John Kerry, said: ”The main focus at this stage, following election, should be Palestinian action on terror.”
In a 10-minute phone call, US President George Bush on Monday issued an ”open invitation” to the Palestinian president to visit the White House — an offer never extended to Arafat, whom Bush called a terrorist.
The US president told his Palestinian counterpart he was ”committed to helping him tackle key issues, like security, terrorism, economic growth and building democratic institutions”, said White House spokesperson Scott McClellan.
Bush urged Abbas to consolidate the Palestinian security forces, at present split into many different branches, to take on armed groups such as Hamas who refused to end attacks against Israeli targets.
Hamas, which is considering a ceasefire, said it will work with Abbas. But its Gaza leader, Mahmoud Zahar, said Abbas will fail because Israel will not give him a chance.
Abbas spent much of the day meeting senior Palestinian politicians such as the Prime Minister, Ahmed Qureia, with whom he discussed the shape of the Cabinet. – Guardian Unlimited Â