RAMALLAH, July 25 (JMCC) - Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas said Sunday that he would continue to resist moving immediately to direct talks with
Israel despite heavy international pressure to do so. Abbas said in an interview with the Voice of Palestine radio that talks would be doomed if the did not start within a clear framework.
The Palestinians are wary of entering open-ended negotiations with Israel's hardline prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. They want Israel to first accept the principle of a Palestinian state in the lands it captured in the 1967 Mideast War, with some alterations.
Abbas aides said he has received phone calls in recent days from the leaders of Germany, Britain and Italy, among others, urging him to go to direct talks.
The entire world is asking us to go for direct negotiations, but going to negotiations without a clear reference might make them collapse from the first moment, Abbas told the radio from Uganda, where he was visiting.
We are not against meetings, whether in Ramallah or Tel Aviv, Abbas added. The issue is to set the ... reference for negotiations. After that, we are ready to go anywhere.
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