Abbas opposes cancelling security coordination with Israel, Palestinian sources say
A confidant of Abbas said that the Palestinians will maintain the security cooperation with Israel as long as it serves the Palestinians interests.
By YASSER OKBI/ MAARIV HASHAVUAPalestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas(photo credit: REUTERS)
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas opposes cancelling security coordination with Israel, Palestinian sources said Sunday. According to the sources, Abbas is likely to delay a Palestinian leadership vote on the meeting.A confidant of Abbas said that the Palestinians will maintain the security cooperation with Israel as long as it serves the Palestinians interests. "The issue deserves contemplation and should not be made lightly," he stressed.Several senior Fatah officials have expressed support for stopping security cooperation with Israel in the aftermath of the death of Ziad Abu Ein, the Palestinian Authority minister who collapsed and died shortly after a protest in which he clashed with IDF forces in the West Bank last week.Palestinian sources denied reports that Abbas had met with Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen at the presidential palace in Ramallah in recent days.The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that it would be taking all steps necessary to advance recognition of a Palestinian state in the international arena, including at the United Nations.The PA Foreign Ministry praised the decision made by a number of European parliaments to support recognition of a Palestinian state as a way of ensuring the success of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks."These decisions are the fruit of great effort by President Mahmoud Abbas and the Foreign Ministry," the PA said. "Our entreaties to the European parliaments were necessary in light of the efforts by European governments to show that recognition of a Palestinian state would harm negotiations. The solution was to find ways to apply pressure on the governments - to obligate them morally to recognize a Palestinian state within a limited amount of time."The PA Foreign Ministry further emphasized that "these steps came after the Palestinian leadership became convinced that this path of negotiations is not leading anywhere, meaning that recognition of a Palestinian state would be indefinitely frozen."
