Jerusalem, July 12: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called on Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas to meet him to restart stalled Middle East peace negotiations.
“I say to the leader of the Palestinian Authority, let’s meet to reach a political and economic peace,” Netanyahu said at the weekly cabinet meeting.
The hawkish premier has previously called on the Palestinians to revive peace talks that were relaunched in November 2007 but suspended after Israel launched its three-week war on Gaza in late December.
The Palestinians have said they would not resume talks unless Israel freezes all settlement activity in the occupied West Bank in line with US demands, something that Netanyahu has so far refused to do.
“As we have said before, what is required… is for all parties, Palestinian and Israeli, to fulfill their obligations under the roadmap,” Abbas told reporters in Ramallah.
The internationally adopted 2003 “roadmap” agreement requires Israel to halt all settlement activity — including the so-called “natural growth” of existing settlements — and for the Palestinians to halt attacks against Israel.
Netanyahu has said he will not allow new settlements to be built but will permit construction in annexed east Jerusalem and existing settlement blocs that Israel intends to keep in any future peace deal.
Sunday’s cabinet meeting was held in the desert town of Beersheva instead of Jerusalem to show the government’s commitment to development in the Negev desert.
Netanyahu has spoken on the phone with Abbas since being sworn into office on March 31, but he has yet to meet the Palestinian leader.
The presence of more than 280,000 Jewish settlers in communities across the West Bank and another 200,000 in mostly Arab east Jerusalem has been a major stumbling block in past peace negotiations.
–Agencies