/ 28 September 2007

Israel, Palestine could sign peace deal in 2008

Israel and the Palestinians could sign a peace deal within six months of an international peace conference scheduled for November, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Friday.

”The meeting in November should define the principles settling the questions over the final status [of the Palestinian territories],” Abbas said in an interview in New York, where he is attending the United Nations General Assembly.

”Then we will begin negotiations on the details under a timeframe, which ought not to exceed six months, to reach a peace treaty,” he added.

The leader of the Palestinian Authority, who has met several foreign leaders during his stay in New York, said that the United States-sponsored talks will open in Washington on November 15.

”We have noted that the whole world is interested in this meeting and attaches great hopes to its success,” he added.

Abbas said that Palestinian and Israeli negotiators will start to tackle preparations for the gathering in the coming days. ”We want to prepare a framework agreement defining clear principles and without equivocation that will serve as a basis for the settlement. Immediately after the meeting we will hold negotiations on the basis of this document.”

Key stumbling blocks in previous talks between Israel and the Palestinians have included the borders of a future Palestinian state, the fate of the Jewish settlements, the status of Jerusalem and the question of Palestinian refugees.

”We, the Israelis and the Arabs, must make this meeting succeed,” Abbas said.

He said the members of the Middle East quartet, the permanent members of the Security Council, the follow-up committee of the Arab League and certain countries from the Group of Eight and the non-aligned movement should take part in the talks.

The international quartet, which groups the US, UN, European Union and Russia, issued a ”road map” for Israeli-Palestinian peace in 2003 originally envisioning the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.

”We hope that Syria and Lebanon will also participate in the meeting,” he added. The US announced this week that it would invite Syria to the talks, but Damascus has expressed reservations about taking part. — Sapa-AFP