Region | Palestinian Territories
Abbas aide: Obama is our last chance for two-state solution
A senior Palestinian official was quoted on Thursday as saying United States President Barack Obama was the "last chance" for a two-state solution to the conflict with Israel.
- Agencies
- Published: 22:48 July 2, 2009
Geneva & Berlin: A senior Palestinian official was quoted on Thursday as saying United States President Barack Obama was the "last chance" for a two-state solution to the conflict with Israel.
"Obama is our saviour. He is realistic and pragmatic. He is not a dreamer," said Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
"He is our last chance," Abed Rabbo told the Geneva-based Le Temps newspaper, citing the growing Israeli colonies as an impediment to regional peace.
The senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation was in Switzerland for discussions pertaining to the Geneva Initiative, a proposal for a peace accord between the two peoples, that was launched in 2003.
Abed Rabbo said the Obama administration was informed about the unofficial proposal for a two-state solution and implied the US envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchel, spoke favourably of the model.
On Wednesday, Abed Rabbo and his Israeli counterpart, former minister Yossi Beilin, met with Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey, who pledged to keep funding the work of the initiative.
Abed Rabbo also called on the Islamist Hamas movement, which rules the Gaza Strip, to accept a two-state solution, saying it was in the Palestinian interest.
In a recent speech, hardline Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would, with certain conditions, accept a demilitarised Palestinian state, after declining to support any sovereignty during his first months in office.
The White House said the speech was an important step forward though it failed to please the Palestinian leadership.
In Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel demanded yesterday that Israeli colony building in the West Bank stop, saying it endangered efforts to achieve a two-state solution with the Palestinians.
"I think it is now important to get commitments from all sides and that includes the issue of settlement [colony] building," Merkel said in a speech to the Bundestag lower house of parliament.
"I am convinced that there must be a stop to this. Otherwise we will not come to the two-state solution that is urgently needed."
Merkel's remarks are in line with the positions of the European Union and the United States, but were unusually clear-cut for the German leader, who regularly cites her country's special obligation to Israel because of the Nazi Holocaust.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said US-backed peace talks with Israel cannot resume until all colony activity has ceased on occupied land the Palestinians want for a state.
Washington has also called for a total halt to colony building in the occupied West Bank, a demand that has opened the most serious rift in US-Israeli relations in a decade.
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