Israel is ready to return to negotiations with the Palestinian Authority if it prevents the Palestinian statehood bid in the United Nations this September, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said on Wednesday.
"The Israeli government is ready to discuss all of the details with the Palestinians as long as they don't go to the UN," Ayalon said in an interview with the Palestinian Ma'an television station.
RELATED:Israel served as ‘main course’ at EU dinner, official says Muslim states call on Hamas to recognize Quartet terms The foreign minister also discussed the difference between the current Palestinian bid for statehood and the 1947 UN Resolution 181 which led to the creation of Israel, speaking in the Ma'an interview. In 1947, he explained, the UN called for the creation of two states, not just one. The Palestinian plan, he added, is a unilateral move.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told a Lebanese TV station
on Monday night that he is prepared to resume peace talks with Israel
if the Americans and Europeans make a good offer to the Palestinians.
“The negotiations are my preferred choice,” Abbas said in an interview with the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation.
“We have received a several offers and we have studied them and
responded to them. But the Israelis didn’t accept these offers,
especially the cessation of construction in the settlements.”
Abbas said he would not return to the negotiating table without
agreement on terms of reference for the peace process and a freeze of
settlement construction.
The Palestinians want Israel to agree in principle to the pre-1967 lines as the basis for a final agreement.
Abbas said that unless these conditions were met, he would go ahead with
his plan to ask the United Nations in September to recognize a
Palestinian state.
Khaled Abu Tomeah contributed to this report