Palestinians blame Israel for deadlock in peace talks

A senior Palestinian official said on Thursday that the speech of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before the UN General Assembly was repeated and didn't bring anything new.

"There will be no resumption of peace talks with Israel before the complete halt of Israeli settlement and without the release of the prisoners," said Nemer Hammad, an aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Hammad was responding to Netanyahu's remarks in the speech where he called on the Palestinians to unconditionally resume the stalled peace negotiations.

The Palestinian official also accused Israel that it is the one which brought the peace talks to a deadlock because of not halting settlement and because Netanyahu refused to freeze it.

"How can we talk about two states while settlement is going on," Hammad told Xinhua, adding "Netanyahu has even didn't refer with one single word to the American initiative."

He went on saying that "Israel made the American initiative failing in spite of the attempts of the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerrey because Israel refused to release the fourth group of prisoners that was agreed upon."

The peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians had stopped in March last year after it had been sponsored by the United States for nine months. The talks stopped without achieving any progress.

"Netanyahu was able to say that he decided to freeze settlement within a certain period of time, but all what he said lets get back to the talks without preconditions and without halting settlement," said Hammad.

Abbas aide also slammed Netanyahu when he spoke about what happens in Jerusalem, adding "instead of carrying actions to stop what happens in Jerusalem, he (Netanyahu) insisted that he won't change his policy." Endit