WEST BANK: Abbas appears to turn down quartet initiative

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REPORTING FROM RAMALLAH, WEST BANK -– Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas seemed Saturday to have turned down the latest quartet peace initiative on the Middle East conflict because it failed to mention Israeli settlements and the 1967 borders.

However, he said he was not going to give a final answer regarding it before studying it with the rest of his political commanders.

Abbas made these comments to reporters traveling with him on the plane that flew him from New York to Jordan. He is expected to return to Ramallah on Sunday, where he will receive a hero’s welcome after his passionate appeal for statehood at the United Nations General Assembly on Friday.

The quartet -- the U.S., Russia, the European Union and the U.N. --- failed to mention in its initiative the Israeli settlement activities in the occupied West Bank, nor the 1967 borders, two demands without which Palestinians have continuously said they will not return to negotiations with Israel.

“Any initiative that does not call for a halt to settlements and does not refer to the 1967 borders will not be dealt with,” Abbas said.

However, he kept the door open for accepting the quartet initiative by saying that it was “politically wrong” to neglect any initiative “because it may have some positive elements that we can develop on.”

-- Maher Abukhater