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Abbas says US cannot sponsor peace talks
Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas called the Trump administration “biased and not suitable to be a sponsor” of future Israeli-Palestinian talks during a visit to Baghdad yesterday.
President Abbas arrived in Iraq on Sunday evening and met with Iraqi Prime Minister, Adel Abdel Mahdi, where they discussed the latest political developments in the region, including the recent flare-up of hostilities on the Temple Mount. He also briefed Mahdi on the details of Israel’s refusal to transfer $138m in tax revenues collected on behalf of the PA in protest at the PA’s payments to people convicted of terrorist offences and their families.
The meetings were also attended by the head of PA General Intelligence Majed Faraj, Abbas’s Economic Adviser, Muhammad Mustafa, and Abbas’s diplomatic adviser Majdi al-Khalidi, as well as Yasser Abbas. Abbas said: “The current American administration is encouraging Israel to be a state above the law.”
Yesterday Abbas held talks with the Iraqi President Barham Saleh. Both leaders reiterated the importance of Jerusalem to the Palestinian people. President Saleh said that Iraq will continue to defend the rights of the Palestinian people.
In Haaretz, Amos Harel writes that in addition to tension over the tax revenues: “There are two more worrying processes at play. Tensions between the wardens and the Palestinian prisoners are simmering in Israeli prisons after Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan had disrupters installed in their wings to garble conversations on smuggled cellphones … meanwhile, at the Temple Mount, no solution has yet been found for the conflict over the decision by the Waqf, the Islamic custodian of the Temple Mount, to reopen the contested building Bab-a-Rahma, by the Golden Gate, which had been closed down in 2003.”
On Sunday, the PA’s official daily newspaper referred to the US envoy for international negotiations, Jason Greenblatt as “Mongoloid”. Currently, the PA maintains a complete boycott of the Trump administration, refusing to meet with any US officials.