Palestinian PM sets 2-year target for statehood

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad set a goal on Monday of establishing a Palestinian state within two years.

"I call on all our people to unite around the project of establishing a state and to strengthen its institutions ... so that the Palestinian state becomes, by the end of next year or within two years at most, a reality," he said in a speech.

"Achieving this goal within two years is possible," he told an audience at Al Quds University near Jerusalem.

Fayyad, a technocrat with no significant political base of his own, heads a newly aligned cabinet with more ministers from the dominant Fatah faction of President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Islamist Hamas rivals refuse to recognize.

In line with Abbas' policy, he signaled no change in the Palestinian refusal to resume peace talks with Israel until it freezes Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Palestinians, he said, should win world support by building up all the institutions for the independent state they seek.

"I think the need for it has become more pressing after the speech of the Israeli prime minister tried to bypass the international consensus that calls for Israel to implement its obligations," Fayyad said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a speech on June 14, said he was ready to accept the establishment of a Palestinian state, but only if shorn of many of the attributes of sovereignty, notably an army and control of its own borders.

Netanyahu has also refused to freeze the building of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, as agreed by previous Israeli governments in international agreements.