Region | Palestinian Territories
Abbas to ask US president to curb West Bank colonies
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said yesterday he would ask US President George W. Bush to curb Israel's West Bank colonies for the sake of peace.
- Reuters
- Published: 00:25 January 8, 2008
Bethlehem, West Bank : Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said yesterday he would ask US President George W. Bush to curb Israel's West Bank colonies for the sake of peace.
Bush has called the expansion of Jewish colonies on occupied land where Palestinians seek statehood an 'impediment' and said he would discuss it with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert during his trip to the region, which begins on Wednesday.
Olmert last week ordered a de-facto halt to new Israeli projects in the West Bank but disputes remain over Jewish homes to be built in East Jerusalem, another territory captured in a 1967 war and which Palestinians see as their future capital. Abbas made clear that Israel's measures fell short of the clean sweep that Palestinians demand for diplomacy to work.
"We wish for him [Bush] first to ask the Israelis to stop the settlement [colony] building and ... guarantee once more the ending of the occupation that happened in 1967," Abbas told reporters after attending Orthodox Christmas services in Bethlehem.
He said a future Palestine should be founded alongside Israel, with "Jerusalem as capital of the two states: East Jerusalem for Palestinians and West Jerusalem for the Israelis".
The remarks cut to the heart of a decades-old conflict which Bush, having formally launched talks between Olmert and Abbas at a US-sponsored conference in November, hopes to bring closer to resolution before he leaves office next year.
Olmert is expected to pledge to scrap West Bank outposts erected by colonists without approval.
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