Hanoi, May 25: Progress in indirect peace talks begun earlier this month depends on Israel, Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas said during an official visit to Vietnam on Tuesday.
“We hope that we will achieve progress. It depends on the Israelis,” Abbas said in brief remarks after talks with Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet.
United States envoy George Mitchell plans to shuttle between Washington, the Israelis and Palestinians as part of the indirect talks begun on May 9.
The indirect negotiations were first agreed to in March but the initiative collapsed within days when Israel announced plans to build 1,600 illegal settler units in Israeli-occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem.
The Palestinians eventually agreed to enter the talks after receiving US assurances that the project would be frozen.
Occupied Jerusalem and illegal Jewish settlements built on Palestinian land are among the most contentious issues in efforts to achieve a peace deal.
As part of the indirect talks, Abbas and Mitchell held their first meeting last Wednesday, before the US representative met with Israeli leaders.
There were no immediate signs of progress after Mitchell’s Middle East visit.
Abbas said in an interview with France 24 television on Monday that he plans to visit Washington, probably next month, to try to advance the peace process.
The last round of direct negotiations between the two sides collapsed in December 2008 when Israel launched a devastating war on the Gaza Strip.
In Hanoi, Abbas witnessed the signing of agreements for cooperation in a variety of fields including economics, culture, education and foreign affairs, officials said.
Abbas’s visit to Vietnam was to conclude Wednesday after talks with Communist Party Secretary General Nong Duc Manh.
Israel on Monday urged the Palestinians to pursue what it called an “economic peace.”
“The Palestinian Authority needs to choose if it wants peace and an improved standard of living, or if they want further collisions and to eternalise the conflict,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his right-wing Likud party.
Intelligence Minister Dan Meridor, a member of Netanyahu’s cabinet, also accused the Palestinians of shooting themselves in the foot over a campaign to boycott products from illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
“What we need to see is more economic cooperation, more economic growth. What I see in the boycott is just the opposite,” said Meridor who is also minister for intelligence and atomic energy.
Israel is to be formally accepted into the OECD at a ceremony in Paris on Thursday.
Palestinian groups had argued that letting Israel join would be a breach of the OECD’s commitment to human rights because of the Jewish state’s continuing occupation of Palestinian land and its treatment of the Palestinians.
Meanwhile, nine ships and boats carrying aid to the besieged Gaza Strip will attempt to break the Israeli blockade of the Palestinian enclave this week, a Turkish charity group involved in the campaign said Monday.
“If everything goes as planned, the ships will reach the shores of Gaza on Wednesday evening,” Serkan Nergis, a spokesman for the Foundation of Humanitarian Relief (IHH), an Istanbul-based charity, said.
Organisers of the campaign, sponsored by civic groups from about 50 countries, have received warnings from Israel that the fleet would not be allowed to Gaza, but are determined to go ahead, he said.
“Under international law, Israel has no say over Palestinian waters. If they intervene, their action will amount to that of the pirates in Somalia,” he said.
“If we are stopped, we will wait until we have a permission. There is no turning back,” he added.
The spokesman explained that three ships left Istanbul Saturday for Antalya, on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, from where they will sail again Tuesday.
They are scheduled to meet up near Cyprus with six other vessels embarking from Ireland, Britain and Greece and sail on together to Gaza, he said.
The fleet — dubbed the Freedom Flotilla — will carry a total of 10,000 tonnes of cargo, mainly medical supplies, hospital equipment and construction materials, with 750 activists on board, he said.
—Agencies