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US warns Abbas against reneging on Israeli-Palestinian agreements

September 15, 2015 at 1:30 pm

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has recently received warning messages from American officials regarding the upcoming speech of President Mahmoud Abbas, due to be delivered at the UN headquarters later this month, Alkhaleejonline.net reported yesterday.

Abbas has previously warned that during his speech he would announce his plans to renege on all agreements previously signed with the Israeli occupation.

Alkhaleejonline.net reported an anonymous Palestinian official as saying that a number of senior American officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry, have called Abbas and asked him not to make decisions that will arouse the anger of the United States.

The official told Alkhaleejonline.net that the US administration is seriously afraid of Abbas withdrawing his support for the Oslo Peace Accords and asking Palestinians to cancel all Oslo-agreed peace measures starting from 1 October. The relationship between the PA and the Americans has been tense ever since Abbas officially demanded an escalation of the rhetoric used to refer both to the Israeli occupation and the United States.

Based on the warning messages from US officials, it is clear that the United States would reject any unilateral measure by the PA to renege on previous agreements and that it would immediately punish the PA if Abbas carried out any of his plans.

Abbas has informed Arab countries about the content of his planned UN speech, calling on them to offer a monthly $100 million grant to the PA treasury in case the US carries out its punishment.

The PA is due to impose a set of austerity measures in the coming months, stressing that it is unable to pay its military and civil servants as before.

Meanwhile, the secretary of Fatah’s Executive Committee, Saeb Erekat, said that Abbas’s UN speech would be “decisive” and “important”, noting that the Palestinian leadership will not continue to accept the ongoing political deadlock with regards to the Palestinian arena.