The International Quartet supports the creation of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capitol, a Palestinian official has stated.The Middle East Monitor has reported that the official, who spoke to the Italian news agency AKI following the recent meetings in Munich, said: ‘The US Secretary of State John Kerry proposed, during the meeting, the results of his talks with both the Palestinians and the Israelis. He asked for the help of the Quartet to support his efforts.’
According to the official: ‘The international sides reiterated to Kerry that they support his efforts. But, regarding his proposal for the final status issues, they said that it has to be based on the positions adopted by the Palestinian and Israeli sides. It is a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital and the West Jerusalem a capital of Israel.’
The International Quartet on the Middle East is a group of four nations, with both international and supranational entities, involved in mediating the peace process in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Quartet are the United Nations, the United States, the European Union, and Russia.
In related news, The Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, has rejected the idea of a future demilitarized Palestinian state as proposed by the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and published by the New York Times. The Islamic movement describes these as personal ideas of the president that do not represent the Palestinian consensus, according to a report by the Alternative Information Center (AIC).
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas recently proposed to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that NATO troops, led by the US, should be responsible for security of a future Palestinian state. He also said that their deployment could be for an indefinite amount of time.
‘They can be here for a long time, in any place that they want, and not just the eastern border, but also along the western border’, he said.
Abbas proposed to the U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, that the Palestinian state will be demilitarized and that NATO forces will be responsible to its security. In addition, Abbas agreed for Israeli forces to remain in the West Bank for 5 years after signing a peace agreement.
Hamas, in a statement published Monday, said that those ‘ideas do not reflect the position of the Palestinian national consensus.” The movement added that “the Palestinian national consensus rejects negotiations that violate Palestinian rights.’
‘The chairman of the PA was quoted today as saying that he is not prepared to recognize the Jewish state. And this comes with him knowing that there will not be an agreement without recognition of the nation state of the Jews,’ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a Likud faction meeting.
Despite the propositions, PLO chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said a recent meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry made no progress and that a date for a framework agreement has yet to be set.
