Abbas likely to meet Kerry on Mideast visit this week
PA foreign minister says the two leaders are expected to discuss the PA president’s latest political initiative to establish a Palestinian state on pre-1967 lines within 3 years.
By KHALED ABU TOAMEHUS Secretary of State John Kerry (L), meets with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, in Amman, Jordan March 26, 2014.(photo credit: REUTERS)
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and US Secretary of State John Kerry are likely to meet this week, PA Foreign Minister Riad Malki said on Tuesday.Malki said that Abbas and Kerry would discuss the PA president’s latest political initiative to establish a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 lines within three years.Kerry is currently visiting the region in the context of US efforts to form a coalition against the Islamic State terrorist group.Malki said that the PA leadership was still awaiting a response from the US and Israel to Abbas’s plan.Last week a senior Palestinian official said that the US Administration had expressed reservations about the plan.The announcement came following a meeting in Washington between Kerry and Palestinian officials Saeb Erekat and Majed Faraj, who presented him with details of the initiative.Malki told the Voice of Palestine radio station that a positive Israeli and American response would pave the way for the resumption of peace talks for a period of three months.He warned that a negative response would prompt the Palestinians to go to the UN Security Council with a request to set a timeline for “ending Israeli occupation and the establishment of a Palestinian state on the basis of assurances provided by the US Administration at the beginning of this year.”Malki also warned that a US veto at the Security Council against the request would put to test US credibility in dealing with the Palestinian issue.
