Abbas committed to serious negotiations

The Palestinian President’s spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudainah, dismissed yesterday “a senior US official’s statement” claiming that President Mahmoud Abbas has rejected to return to the negotiating table, describing the statement as “irresponsible” and as “an outrageous incitement”.“We affirm that we have not rejected any offer to engage in negotiations aimed at implementing the two-state solution, and we have not rejected negotiations in principle,” Abu Rudainah remarked in a press statement.Wafa news agency reported that the Palestinian Authority was committed to serious negotiations as a course to the establishment of the Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, based on the 1967 borders.Abu Rudainah said this fact “was confirmed by President Mahmoud Abbas in his address before the Palestinian Central Council, as well as in his last meeting with the EU foreign ministers in Brussels.”He also stressed that serious negotiations require that all parties involved believe in a two-state solution.President Abbas will address the United Nations Security Council on February 20 during the body’s monthly meeting on the Middle East amid tensions over the US decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.Since President Donald Trump broke from decades of United States policy with his Dec.6 announcement on Jerusalem, Abbas has said he will ask the council to grant full UNmembership to the Palestinians and will only accept an internationally-backed panel to broker any peace talks with Israel.“This will be a good thing for members of the Security Council to listen to the president himself,” said Kuwait’s UN ambassador Mansour Ayyad al-Otaibi, president of the council for February. “No council members rejected this proposal.”US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told the Security Council last week that Abbas lacked “the courage and the will to seek peace.”Trump has threatened to withhold aid to the Palestinians if they did not pursue peace with Israel but Abbas has said the United States had taken itself “off the table” as a peace mediator in recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.Al-Otaibi said Israel had not yet asked to send a high-level representative to the council meeting.In 2012, the UN General Assembly granted de facto recognition of a sovereign Palestinian state when it upgraded their status to a “non-member state” from an “entity.”However, the UN Security Council has to recommend a state for full membership to the General Assembly, which then needs to approve it with a two-thirds majority.The United States would likely veto a Palestinian bid in the Security Council.