| Abbas postpones meeting with Mofaz |
OCCUPIED RAMALLAH Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has postponed a controversial meeting with Israeli Vice Premier Shaul Mofaz that had been scheduled for Sunday, Palestinian officials said on Saturday even as the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) called for an emergency UN Security Council meeting on Israel’s policy of building Jewish settlements on Palestinian land.
The officials did not say when a new date might be set for what would be the highest-level meeting between the sides since peace talks broke down in 2010.
“We know that Mofaz will bring nothing new,” said Wasl Abu Yosef, a member of Abbas’ Palestine Liberation Organisation, who told reporters of the postponement.
Israeli officials, who had previously never confirmed or denied the meeting would happen, did not comment.
The meeting had been supposed to take place in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Former Palestinian minister Hassan Asfour said the postponement might have been prompted by a protest among Palestinian youths who did not like the idea of Mofaz, a former Israeli defence chief, being a guest at Abbas’ headquarters.
Dozens of young Palestinians later clashed with Abbas’ security forces as they tried to march on the headquarters in protest against the meeting, even though it had been put off. Four people were detained.
Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians broke down in late 2010 in a dispute over Jewish settlement-building in the West Bank, and Palestinians have demanded a halt to construction before talks resume.
“The PLO executive committee has decided to call for the Security Council to convene an urgent meeting to discuss settlements,” the committee said after a meeting in the West Bank political capital of Ramallah.
“We have decided to undertake contacts with all international blocs for the Security Council to adopt a resolution against settlements and for them to be stopped,” it said after the meeting in which Abbas took part.
Peace talks between the two sides have been on hold since late September 2010, with the Palestinians refusing to resume them without a moratorium on Israeli settlement building.
Agencies
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