If Israel and the Palestinians do not succeed in reaching a peace deal by the end of 2008, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will consider calling off negotiations with Jerusalem, a top aide to the PA leader told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Photo: AP
Rafik Husseini, Abbas's chief of staff, spoke to the Post on the sidelines of the funeral for 11-year-old Ahmed Mussa, from the village of Na'alin, who was killed on Tuesday during a demonstration against the security fence.
"We will negotiate until the end of the year, and then the president will review our options," Husseini said, adding that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's declaration this week that a peace deal on everything but Jerusalem could be reached by the end of the year was unacceptable.
"Without a deal on Jerusalem, there will not be a peace deal at all," he said.
Abbas's spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudaineh, said that as far as the Palestinians were concerned, Jerusalem was a "red line" that couldn't be crossed.
He accused Olmert of failing to fulfill his commitment under the terms of the Annapolis peace conference.
"Unless we achieve an agreement [with Israel] before the end of the year, the peace process will lose its credibility," he said. "We also urge the Americans to exert pressure on Israel to honor the agreements with the Palestinians."
Ahmed Qurei, head of the PA negotiating team with Israel, echoed Husseini's stance.
"There will be no peace agreement with Israel unless there's an agreement on Jerusalem," he said. "And there will be no state without Jerusalem. Olmert and the rest of the world must understand that Jerusalem is the core of the problem."
Asked about the prospects of reaching an agreement with Israel before the end of this year, a senior PA official in Ramallah told the Post that he was not optimistic.
"It would take a miracle to reach an agreement in the coming six months," he said. "The gap between the two parties is still very wide."
