Israel will soon hold talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres said yesterday.
"In a very short while, we shall start to talk with him," Peres said in an interview with foreign media.
Peres said that Abbas, a moderate, was a viable negotiating partner who was legitimately elected by his people. He said Palestinians must choose between the path of compromise that politics offers, or the "uncompromising" road of religion.
PHOTO: AP
Abbas is locked in a power struggle with the Islamic group Hamas, which defeated his Fatah party in legislative elections in January. The dispute has triggered factional fighting.
Hamas, whose charter calls for Israel's destruction, has refused to cave in to calls by Western donor nations to renounce violence and recognize Israel, despite growing hardship.
"Foreign support won't come to a party which opposes peace, which doesn't recognize Israel," Peres said on the eve of an international conference of heads of state and other leaders in Kazakhstan. Participants are expected to discuss security and other issues of mutual concern. A delegation from the Palestinian Authority is attending.
Visiting France this week, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel would set its borders with the Palestinians unilaterally if peace talks stay stalled.
Abbas has pressured Hamas to accept a proposal that implicitly recognizes Israel. Abbas has endorsed the plan as a way to restart peace talks and lift the crippling international sanctions that have rendered the government unable to pay salaries that sustain one-third of the Palestinian population.
Meanwhile the Hamas government wants a ceasefire with Israel and is willing to ask Palestinian militants to stop firing rockets from Gaza into the Jewish state, a spokesman said on Thursday.
But Ghazi Hamad said Israel had to first stop military activity in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
"I spoke today with the prime minister and he said we definitely want quiet everywhere. We are interested in a ceasefire everywhere," Hamad, speaking in Hebrew, said in an interview on Israel Radio.
The Islamic militant group scrapped a 16-month truce with Israel last Friday and soon after launched a barrage of makeshift rockets at the Jewish state from Gaza.
Earlier this week a senior member of Olmert's party threatened Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas with assassination if the group resumed suicide bombings.
And Israeli media reports said the director of Israel's Shin Bet security service had warned Hamas, via Abbas aides, that its leaders would be targeted if rocket attacks continued.
Along the Israel-Gaza frontier, Israeli forces killed three Palestinian militants who approached the Israeli-built border fence, Palestinian security officials said.
An Israeli army spokeswoman in Tel Aviv said troops spotted the three men planting explosives.
"They were attacked, also from the air, and we saw they were hit," the spokeswoman said about the night-time encounter.
Earlier, commenting on prospects for a new ceasefire, Hamad said a truce would be conditional.
"We are ready to launch discussions with factions over stopping rocket firing but only if there is an Israeli commitment to cease all military attacks against all Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank."
Israeli officials were not available to comment.
Hamad's remarks followed a sharp drop in militant rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed