Abbas calls for an international conference to resolve Mideast conflict

AP , Wednesday 29 Nov 2023

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is calling for an international conference to resolve the Mideast conflict and establish an independent Palestinian state.

Mahmoud Abbas
File Photo: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas speaks during a meeting of the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank city of Ramallah, AFP

 

He said Wednesday that the Palestinians are ready to work with the international community on a “serious political process” that leads to an independent state in the West Bank, Gaza, and east Jerusalem, territories Israel seized in the 1967 Mideast war.

He also again called for a halt to the war in Gaza.

Abbas’s Palestinian Authority administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Hamas drove its forces out of Gaza when it seized power there in 2007.

The US has said a “revitalized” Palestinian Authority should govern Gaza and the West Bank as part of an eventual two-state solution to the decades-old conflict.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected that idea, and his government is strongly opposed to Palestinian statehood.

The last serious Israeli-Palestinian peace talks broke down more than a decade ago.

* This story was edited by Ahram Online.

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