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Palestinians reiterate inviolability of Arab peace initiative, ending occupation

Xinhua, June 4, 2016 Adjust font size:

Palestinian president spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeinah on Friday reiterated the inviolability of the 2002 Arab peace initiative and the necessity to end the Israeli occupation, the Palestinian official news agency reported.

The president's spokesperson valued the position of French president Francois Hollande and his efforts to hold a comprehensive peace conference in the coming fall in order to end the critical condition due to settlement activity and occupation, the report said.

Secretary General of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Saeb Erekat said "the Paris meeting is a very significant step" and called on he international community to bind Israel to implement "genuine mechanism to fully end the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 and to solve all final status issues based on international law."

"We negotiated bilaterally with Israel, the occupying power, for over two decades, but they continue to violate all agreements that we had signed. In fact, the number of settlements in occupied Palestine has grown from nearly 200,000 to 600,000 during the past 20 years of bilateral talks," said Erekat.

He added that the multilateral approach provided through the French initiative is seen by Palestinians as a need into order to provide "a clear mechanism for implementation and monitoring."

The Israeli Foreign Ministry described the Paris meeting as "a missed opportunity".

It said in a press statement that "instead of urging Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas to answer Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's repeated calls to immediately start direct negotiations without preconditions, the international community submitted to Abbas demands and allowed him to continue to evade conducting direct bilateral negotiations without preconditions."

Major world powers gathered in Paris earlier on Friday and expressed the need for a negotiated two-state solution for Israel and Palestine and pledged a package of incentives for the two sides to revive the stranded peace talks and promote stability in the region. Endit