Off the wire
• BoE keeps benchmark interest rate at 0.5 pct  • Lithuanian president calls for legal ban of violence against children  • Austrian FM urges countries to accept rejected asylum seekers back  • Pakistan, Afghan intelligence chiefs hold anti-terror talks  • British FTSE 100 rises 1.06 pct on Thursday  • Interview: Arab Chambers of Commerce head "proud" of China award  • Poland reopens investigation on 2010 Smolensk crash  • Russia, U.S. call for soonest restart of Syrian talks  • UN chief calls for efforts to end tragedies caused by cancers  • Experts, officials call for "spirit of tourism" against terrorism at Istanbul forum  
You are here: 　 Home

Palestine's Abbas urges int'l community to support peace conference

Xinhua, February 5, 2016 Adjust font size:

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged Thursday the international community to support an international peace conference to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

According to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA, Abbas said the purpose of the international conference is to "establish a mechanism to reach a settlement for the Palestinian cause, like the mechanisms put to settle other crises in the region."

"The Palestinian leadership welcomes all international initiatives aimed at rescuing the peace process and establishing an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, within the borders of 4th of June 1967," said the press statement published by WAFA.

Abbas's remarks came during a meeting with the chairwoman of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, Valentina Matviyenko.

Matviyenko reiterated Russia's "firm support to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the borders of 1967, in accordance with international legitimacy."

The Palestinian presidency welcomed last Friday the statements of French Foreign Minister Lauren Fabius, saying his country would resume efforts to organize an international meeting to "rescue the two-states solution."

The Israeli public radio reported that a senior U.S. official said that direct negotiations between Palestinians and Israel is the best way to reach a mutual agreement.

The last round of peace talks stopped in the first half of 2014, after nine months of meetings mediated by the United States. Endit