HOLY LAND: ABBAS REJECTS "TEMPORARY MIDEAST PEACE" DEAL

Abbas rejects temporary Mideast peace deal

RAMALLAH,West Bank - Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Sunday rejected any temporary solutions to the Middle East conflict, after talks with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who is in the region to push for progress on the so-called roadmap for peace.

At a joint press conference with Rice in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Abbas said he ‘emphasized our refusal to any temporary solutions because we do not believe that this would be a viable solution.’

‘What we need is active movement from all international parties... to achieve a durable and continuing peace... so that the region and the people enjoy peace and security.’

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni -- who met Rice on Saturday -- last month floated a peace plan that envisaged a Palestinian state with temporary borders before a final settlement is reached.

‘The US is deeply committed to find ways to accelerate progress on the roadmap,’ Rice said at the Ramallah press conference.

‘The US is absolutely committed to helping find a solution’ and to building on what she called ‘the momentum currently in Israeli-Palestinian relations to build on a political horizon.’

Rice, who arrived in the region on Saturday, did not offer offer any concrete steps to breathing life into the the internationally-drafted roadmap which has remained largely moribund since its launch nearly four years ago.

Abbas he hoped Rice’s visit be ‘the beginning of negotiations that will lead to a halt of the war in our region and to the establishment of a Palestinian state.’

He also said his administration was committed to ending deadly factional violence in the volatile Gaza Strip, where clashes between his Fatah party and the governing Hamas movement have killed more than 30 people in the last month.

‘We will exert our utmost efforts to impose law and order and to boost the legal security forces,’ he said.

Abbas also reiterated that if talks with Hamas over forming a national unity government failed to bear fruit, ‘we will go back to the people of Palestine to hold early legislative and presidential elections.’

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Abbas rejects interim state

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Abbas said on Sunday that he opposes the idea. "We told Secretary Rice that we reject any temporary solutions, including a transitional stage, because we don't see it as a realistic option," Abbas told a joint news conference with Rice.
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The United States is trying to boost Abbas in his showdown with the ruling Hamas Islamists, a group Washington labels a terrorist entity. The United States plans to pour $86 million into helping train and equip Abbas's presidential guard.

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Pertinent Links:

1) Abbas rejects temporary Mideast peace deal

2) Abbas rejects interim state