Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday accused the United States of backing Israel’s attempt to impose a fait accompli in dealing with the Palestinian people.
“National rights are not real estate that is bought and sold with money,” Abbas told a press conference with Chilean President Sebastian Pinera after meeting in Ramallah.
He said that the US administration's decision to remove the files of Jerusalem, refugees, settlements and security from the negotiating table and to issue punitive measures against the Palestinian people proved its inability to foster the peace process on a unilateral basis.
Abbas emphasized that Washington’s policies “encouraged the Israeli occupation government to consider Jerusalem as its united capital and to annex the Syrian Golan and parts of the occupied Palestinian territories, in an attempt to impose a de facto policy of force, which the world rejected as a violation of international law and the resolutions of international legitimacy.”
He complained of “Israel’s illegal seizure of our land, natural resources and tax funds, and continued aggression against our Christian and Islamic holy sites.”
He underlined the Palestinian Authority’s readiness to work with an international multilateral mechanism that would sponsor the peace negotiations and to build Palestinian institutions and empower the Palestinian economy.
Pinera, for his part, affirmed his country’s recognition of the right of the Palestinian people to a sovereign and independent state through a two-state solution, in accordance with United Nations resolutions and direct negotiations with Israel.
