Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Sunday that the Palestinian Authority cannot negotiate with Israel unless it halts all settlement expansion.
In an interview published Sunday with the Egyptian weekly October, the PA president insisted that a halt to construction in West Bank settlements was not a Palestinian condition, but rather a condition set by US President Barack Obama.
Earlier today Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to meet with him as soon as possible in order to renew peace talks.
"Let's make peace - both diplomatic peace and economic peace," Netanyahu said at the start of a cabinet meeting in Beersheba that was held there as an act of solidarity with the Negev capital. "There is no reason why we can't meet, the Palestinian Authority president and I, anywhere in Israel, and since we are in Beersheba, I say, let's meet here.
