Abbas pleads for direct talks with Israel

Political vacuum may lead to resumption of violence, warns Palestinian leader at London conference

Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor
Wednesday March 2, 2005

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, challenged Israel yesterday to move to "serious" negotiations as a matter of urgency and warned that without political progress there could be a return to violence.

Addressing Tony Blair's international meeting in London, Mr Abbas promised "to exert 100% effort in the domain of security" to try to prevent attacks such as Friday's suicide bomb in Tel Aviv in which five people died, but warned that "security is vulnerable to regression and even collapse if it is not protected by a serious political process between us and the Israelis".

Although Mr Abbas and the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, met at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh last month, the Israeli government is resisting wider talks.

Mr Abbas wants direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians on the issues that need to be resolved in order to secure a final peace deal, including borders, refugees, Jerusalem and Israeli settlers.

The one-day conference in London, which was confined to discussion about reform of the Palestinian Authority and excluded these wider issues, could turn out to be a staging post on the way to direct negotiations. The Israelis were not present yesterday.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,11538,1428460,00.html