Abbas says he won't Comment on Quartet statement before Studying it

AMMAN, September 24, 2011 (WAFA) – President Mahmoud Abbas Saturday told reporters traveling with him on the plane that flew him from New York to Jordan that he will not comment on a quartet statement issued following his speech at the United Nations General Assembly before studying it.

He said the same thing regarding the French initiative President Nicolas Sarkozy had proposed at the UN.

However, he said, any initiative that does not include calling for halting Israeli settlement activities and recognizing the 1967 borders as the base for negotiations, will not be dealt with.

“We will not neglect any political initiative and it is politically wrong to ignore initiatives because there may be some positive elements in them which we can build on and develop,” he said.

Abbas, who submitted on Friday an application for Palestine’s membership in the UN, said the maximum period to bring a membership application up for discussion at the Security Council is 65 days.

“Therefore, we expect that a vote on Palestine’s membership request will be done in weeks, not months,” he said.

He said there were dozens of last minute meetings in an effort to sway him away from asking for UN membership.

“All these meeting, which were confusing, did not make us change our position because our goal was to deliver the official and humanitarian Palestinian message,” he said.

He said he believes he presented a strong argument than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who spoke half an hour after Abbas.

“The Palestinian argument was more advanced to the Israeli one, clearer and more determined, and we beat them,” said Abbas, explaining that the Israeli position was more reactive and defensive.

Abbas said the Paris economic protocol the Palestinians had signed with Israel as a follow up on the Oslo process is not fair to the Palestinians and should be changed.

“We want to reopen the Paris economic agreement to amend it because it is not fair and imposes many restrictions on the Palestinian economy, which prevents it from growing,” he said.

“With the Paris protocol, it is not possible to develop our economy and land,” he said. “Our goal is to gradually end reliance on foreign aid,” stressing the need to develop Palestinian industrial and agricultural production.

Abbas said he plans to hold intensive talks with Hamas in the next period, not only to discuss reconciliation, but also to hold in depth discussion about the future Palestinian work.

“We are proceeding in implementation of the terms of the reconciliation (with Hamas),” he said, describing as “misunderstanding” that the next government will be a national unity government.

“The truth is we want to establish a transitional government of independent technocrats,” he said.

Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA