Ramallah requests international protection for Abbas following Lieberman threats

The Ramallah-based Palestinian Foreign Ministry has requested international protection for the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas following threats made against him by Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman.

The Ramallah-based ministry held the Israeli government responsible for these statements in which Lieberman warned Abbas that there would be “a price to pay” if the latter continued to pursue UN recognition of Palestine as a non-member state.

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The Palestinian Foreign Ministry also called on the international community and the Mideast Quartet to condemn Lieberman’s explicit assassination threats against Abbas and to hold the Israeli government fully responsible for Lieberman’s stances.

The Ministry stressed that it is important for the world’s states, as well as the United Nations and its bodies, to provide “protection for the Palestinian leadership and public”, to accelerate recognition of a Palestinian state along the June 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, and to support Palestine’s request for non-member status at the UN General Assembly – “as a guarantee for the success of the Peace Process and any future negotiations.”

In a press statement made by the Palestinian Ministry, it asserted that, “By intensifying the campaign against President Abbas, Lieberman is trying to escape the responsibility of the stalled peace negotiations by exporting his government’s political crisis and bankruptcy to the Palestinian side.”