Abbas: U.S. is committed to ending settlement construction

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo on Saturday, and briefed him on his recent trip to Washington, saying that the U.S. was committed to bringing about an end to Israeli construction in the West Bank settlements.

In a joint press conference following the meeting, the Palestinian president said that "when the American administration talks about Israel's duty to stop the settlements - including natural growth - it is a very important step."

Abbas added that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must recognize the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before peace negotiations, which began at the U.S. Annapolis conference, could resume.

"The Israelis seem to have not completed their plan and their vision, and thus, contacts are ongoing, but they will not take months, but weeks. Something must be achieved by the beginning of July," Abbas added.

Addressing the issue of preconditions to peace talks, the Palestinian president said that "the Israelis said that they don't want preconditions, as if what we demand and what the U.S. demands are preconditions. The two-state solution, and halting settlements are not preconditions, but rather established terms of the Road Map plan, so we are not demanding anything new, but rather the implementation of what has already been agreed upon."

In regard to the Arab peace plan, which calls for normalization of ties between the Arab world and Israel in exchange for Israeli territorial withdrawal, Abbas said that he rejects any call to amend the original plan, explaining that he felt that U.S. President Barack Obama and his administration seemed very serious about an agreement.

"We proposed implementation of the Arab Peace Initiative and the Road Map plan, which is simply based on Israel?s withdrawal from occupied Palestinian and Arab territories, and then all Arab and Islamic countries can normalize relations with Israel. The plan was published on Friday in the Washington Post. Arab countries, however, need to see practical steps taken by Israel before they take any decisions," Abbas reiterated.

The Israelis, Abbas went on to say, have now proposed another point to stall the talks: incitement against Israel. "We want to remind them that it was proposed ten years ago and it was agreed in the Wye River Memorandum in 1998 that an American-Palestinian-Israeli committee will investigate all incitement-related claims. The committee operated for a while, then stopped."

"We are demanding now that the committee resumes its tasks to examine Israeli claims about incitement against Israel, as well as our claims as we too think there is incitement in Israel against us through [Israel's] educational curricula," Abbas explained.