A top Palestinian negotiator on Saturday accused Israel of playing with an international peace plan that the two parties accepted in 2002.

Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian negotiator, said Israel was juggling the Road Map peace plan by offering a Palestinian statehood with provisional borders.

"The choice of a statehood with temporary frontiers is completely rejected," Erekat said in a written statement, "This choice had appeared as an option in the second phase of the Road Map but had been deleted after we opposed it."

On Thursday, Israeli President Shimon Peres said the Jewish state can accept a neighboring Palestinian statehood with temporary borders until a specific time before finalizing the boundaries.

Erekat said Peres' remarks were a return to the exchange of conditions instead of applying each party's commitments equivalently.

The Quartet of Mideast players, including the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations endorsed the Road Map which calls on Israel and the Palestinians to take a series of steps ending with a Palestinian statehood alongside Israel.

But continuing Jewish settlement in the West Bank -- the largest correlated part of the future Palestinian state -- prevented years of peace negotiations from making any notable progress.

The new US administration intensified pressure on Israel to freeze all settlement activities in the West Bank.

(Xinhua News Agency June 13, 2009)